Have Some Cannabis While Watching This

Lord Byron's Birthday: So We'll Go No More a-Roving

George Gordon, Lord Byron, born on January 22, 1788, led a dissipated life. In his day, Romantic Poets such as himself lived like rock stars -- cutting a wide swath through polite society and robbing many women and men of their innocence along the way (but giving them some good memories in the process).

He was as famous in his lifetime for his personality cult as for his poetry. He created the concept of the "Byronic hero" -- a defiant, brooding young man, tortured by some darkly mysterious, unforgivable event in his past.

"So We'll Go No More a-Roving" hangs heavy with the poignancy of parties past, memories still glowing with the recollection of youth but slowly fading away.

Only a libertine like Byron could have struck a note this elegaic and final when he was still in his thirties. He knew, even as he lived it, that his intense accelerated lifestyle would lead to an early demise.

He died at the age of 36 and left a legend -- and poetry -- that will live forever.

Happy birthday, Lord Byron!

So We'll Go No More a-Roving

So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart still be as loving,
And the moon still be as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul outwears the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.

.......

When We Two Parted

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me—
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met—
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

Phil Mocek 1, TSA 0: Not Guilty For Refusing To Show ID

Phil Mocek in an Albuquerque courtroom this week.

An Albuquerque jury handed down a not guilty verdict for my friend Phil Mocek of Seattle, who refused to show his ID to TSA officers at the Albuquerque Sunport.

Phil was arrested in late 2009 after he wouldn't show his ID, and then used a camera to videotape an altercation with TSA officers, reports Charlie Pabst at KOB.com.

He was facing several charges, including failure to obey an officer and concealing his identity, but the jury found him not guilty on all four counts.

CONGRATULATIONS, PHIL!

I'd Feel Comfortable With One Of These Groups...

...Wanna guess?

It's OK, You Won't Be That Way For Much Longer

Where Are You, Dean Latimer? Thanks For Everything

Back in 1977 when I started smoking marijuana, one of the first "stoner" things I did was start reading High Times magazine -- which was a lot different back in the day than it is now (more of a "lifestyle" magazine then than a grow book).

And one of the first great writers I discovered within those wonderful pages was the estimable Dean Latimer, with his street-smart attitude and hard-bitten reporter's instincts, his eternal skepticism when confronted with official pronouncements and his healthy disdain for authority.

Latimer, who started out in the late 1960s with the Screw-like Kiss magazine (this was before the rock band), made a name for himself in the early '70s at National Lampoon before moving to High Times. He had it goin' on.

"I wanna be able to write like this guy," my 17-year-old self thought.

Latimer's words refused to just sit there on the glossy pages of High Times.

They sang, in a way that words can do sometimes when they are shot through with the resonance of a life well-lived, with a rich repository of earthly experience, with a seasoned but eternally fresh viewpoint that makes no wimpy compromises, brooks no interference in its intrepid search for truth, cowers before no sacred cows, respects no undeserving authority.

When I read Dean Latimer, I believed in the possibility of knowledge winning over ignorance, of reason prevailing over silliness, of truth triumphing over deception.

Yes, Latimer -- although he never knew it -- was a major motivator for me to pursue journalism and polish up my writing chops.

And although I feel I've never scaled the heights of an on-his-game Latimer, I do credit the guy for a big chunk of the "tone" that is present in my writing to this day.

Dean has vanished, perhaps somewhat mysteriously, as far as I know. After the 1980s, his appearances in High Times became less frequent, and they never found a comparable dude to replace him.

Dean co-wrote one book, Flowers In The Blood: The Story Of Opium (1981) along with Jeff Goldberg. It is, sadly, now out of print. Amazon says he also wrote the 1999 tome How To Pass A Drug Test: High Times Guide.


The only two real examples of Latimer's writing that I was able to find online are, first of all, "Inside Dope: Raising Appalachia," a High Times piece which appears to come from June 2002, which is actually a long time after I thought he'd stopped appearing in the magazine.

Secondly, I found a great article Dean wrote for Penthouse magazine in 1974, when he was at the height of his powers. It's a real gem, and it's called "Who Is Guru Maharaj Ji And Why Is He Saying All These Terrible Things About God?"

It was doomed to be so. The teenaged Guru is everywhere chaperoned by his businesslike brother, Bal Bhagwan Ji, and his formidable mother Mata Ji, and their image resembles an Oriental Osmond Family. Donny and the Guru have about the same number and intellectual quality of fans, in fact, except that the Guru's are 10 to 15 years older, and they have babies whom they name after the Holy Family. The Guru's family, in brief, is at once exotic enough in appearance and address, and yet bourgeois enough in structure, to appeal irresistibly to the spiritually insecure millions of the West. Unhappily, his commerce with his Eastern homeland is nowhere near so fortuitous.

What a rush of memory and emotion it is to read Dean's words again.

It's very sad to me that a writer the caliber of Latimer has been largely forgotten by the world in this digital age -- so much so, that I was unable to Google up a photo of him.

According to whitepages.com, there are seven people with the name Dean Latimer living in the United States, but none of them is anywhere near New York City, so they probably aren't the Dean I remember.

I don't even know if Latimer is still among the living, but, Dean, if you're out there, THANK YOU.

And if anyone else, anywhere, knows what became of Mr. Latimer, please let me know.

All Together Now: A Marijuana Garden Is Not A 'Lab'

In an embarrassing display of Bad Journalism, the Miami New Times, one of the sister Village Voice Media blogs of my paying gig, Toke of the Town, has called marijuana gardens "labs."

That's right. Growing God's green plants from the earth now pretty much equals cooking up meth, boys and girls!

"Oh, it's just semantics," one of my friends said. Well... when "semantics" is used to justify locking people in cages for decades (you can get a life sentence for growing pot), then "semantics" becomes a problem.

I thought it was bad enough this week when a couple of yokel media outlets in my home state of Alabama called a marijuana grow room a "lab"... but to get this kind of fathomless stupidity from a supposedly "alternative weekly" just rankles.

Deeply clueless reporter Francisco Alvarado, in "Top Five Florida 420 Busts in 2010," a December 30, 2010 story in the Miami New Times helpfully tells us:

"Marijuana production is at an all-time high in Florida and so are grow house busts. The local, state and federal law enforcement weed eradication program has seen a 50 percent spike in the number of grow labs [emphasis added] in less than four years."

And now, having unbecomingly fallen for a simple-minded yet deceptive cop turn of phrase, he digs the hole deeper:

"It's easy pickings for Johnny Law when you think about it. Growers are stoners. They concoct hair[sic]-brained schemes to build impregnable Kush farms over multiple bowls of Fruit Loops after smoking some Super Lemon Haze."

Hey Francisco, why don't you just let the cops write the story for you? Way to reinforce 1970s pot stereotypes, man. Just so you know, we stoners enjoy those about as much as you must love colorful, "witty" Hispanic slurs.

So here's my comment to Francisco, made on the page of his trashy little article:

Francisco, marijuana gardens are not "labs."

This Orwellian phrase -- which tries to turn growing plants into something sinister and dangerous -- is not only dumb, it's just bad journalism. Quoting a cop calling a marijuana grow operation a "lab" is one thing.

But doing it yourself? That makes me doubt everything in your story.

As if THAT wasn't bad enough, you helpfully tell us that "growers are stoners" and imply that means they are too stupid to avoid getting busted.

Are you aware that most growers are never caught?

Unlike sloppy journalists, who get called on their very public mistakes.

The Real Lesson

My New Year's Eve Appearance On John Doe Radio

Oddly Enough, This Has Happened To Me

You Might As Well Get Used To it

After Much Research, I Must Conclude That...

However, research continues...

Splish Splash. How Was I To Know There Was A Party Goin' On?

Sometimes a nice relaxing herbal bath is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Garcia: Somebody Has To Do It; Pathetic That It Has To Be Us

At 4:20 PM this Wednesday (December 1), acclaimed Grateful Dead filmmaker and Everything Must Go director Len Dell’Amico will be releasing a rare clip of Jerry Garcia in 1988 concerning the future state of our environment.

Dell-Amico was nice enough to let Reality Catcher readers have an advance peek at the clip (see above).

"I became friends with Garcia in 1980 and 1981 during the production and especially the editing of Dead Ahead, the classic concert film shot at Radio City in New York," Dell'Amico said.

"He sent me a board tape in the summer of '84, and this is when I first heard the Weir-Barlow tune 'Throwing Stones.' What a great and original song, and how amazing was it that a big popular band like the Dead would take on such a serious subject as the destruction of the environment.

"A live version of the song was included in the next full-length video I produced for the Dead, which came out in 1987 and was called So Far. A little-known factoid: Garcia actually co-directed So Far with me," Dell'Amico said.

"So Far went on to become the best-selling concert video of 1988 and it won the American Film Institute's award for best full-length music film of that year.

"Also in 1988, Grateful Dead decided to give a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden in NYC to help save the rainforest. They asked me to create visuals that would directly address rainforest destruction, to show on the live reinforcement screens hanging above the stage while they played Drums/Space/Throwing Stones," Dell'Amico said.

"While prepping for that, I met Randy Hayes of Rainforest Action Network and other eggheads and activists who would be the beneficiaries of the concert, and this is how I first learned about climate change in a serious way," Dell'Amico said.

"It blew my mind.

"Members of the Dead gave a press conference at the U.N. to announce the benefit and to talk about the trouble ahead and raise awareness of ecological issues.

"Ever since then, I have been very focused on the issue of climate change, and I've been able to stay involved through my work with a private family foundation that was started by my father-in-law in the 1990," Dell'Amico said.

"Meanwhile, I had been dreaming about making my own 'story' film since I can remember -- I went to NYU film school -- and when I finally had the time and the means to do it, it was clear to me that my film should be about climate change," Dell'Amico said. "But far from being serious, the movie is darkly comic and the story is entertaining because I felt that would be the best way to get the message across.

"The film is called Everything Must Go," Dell'Amico said.

"Garcia's insightful statement at the U.N. press conference never left my mind over all those years -- he was a very smart guy, on top of all his other accomplishments. Of all the problems we face, climate change is such a huge and unknowable threat that it must be seen as a priority. If the earth becomes unlivable for us humans, we certainly can't work on any of our other problems.

I hope you enjoy the film, and I'd love to hear your comments," Dell'Amico said.