Art Underground: Kasia Polkowska
Posted on November 28, 2008
Walkabout Jones wants to feature artists of all kinds. Submit your paintings, graphic art, photography, drawings and other forms to “Art Underground” at walkaboutjones@gmail.com
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Now on MyTunes
Posted on November 26, 2008
Nutshell– Alice in Chains
Kettle Whistle – Jane’s Addiction
The Pusher – Steppenwolf
I Am a Rock – Simon and Garfunkel
T’Aint What You Do – Jimmy Lunceford w/ Trummy Young
Ventura Highway – America
Milk – Garbage
Alice’s Restaurant – Arlo Guthrie
Everyday – Rogue Wave
Up On Cripple Creek – The Band
Short Skirt, Long Jacket – Cake
Mood Indigo – Duke Ellington
President – Wyclef Jean
Too Darn Hot – Mel Torme
Always True To You In My Fashion– Julie London
Careless Whisper – George Michael
Long Gone Lonesome Blues– Hank Williams Sr.
No Woman, No Cry – Fugees
Dig our playlist? How many sites offer a mix of Cab Calloway and Temple of the Dog? Jim Croce and State Radio? Kenny Rogers, Etta James, Sam Cooke and Johnny Cash? Now it’s your turn to play music savant. Send us your top ten licks, and we’ll start adding your choices to the site. Whether it’s old, new, country, folk, jazz, rock, or straight-up funk, what matters is that it’s musical nirvana from the very first note. So dust off your records, maximize your music files, and send us your picks of legendary licks. Mail them to “MyTunes” at walkaboutjones@gmail.com
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To the Sea
Posted on November 24, 2008
The Golem
Posted on November 19, 2008
The phone rang, and for an instant, it was like calling anyone. The drug dealer’s line rang exactly the same. I don’t know why this came as a shock. What had I expected? Reggae? Actually, I didn’t know what to imagine. A woman picked up on the second ring. She spoke in sober, polished tones—not your traditional maryjane receptionist. I thought of the many Blazed-out-Bettys I’d been talking with in pharmacies lately. I’d been looking for pot work for almost a month, hitting up every smoke shop and co-op from Oceanside to Ocean Beach. Many of my cold calls had played out like this: Blazed-out-Betty answers the phone while coughing up a bong hit. I start to speak, only to hear a Bic flicker and water lowly percolate. “Who are you again?”
Ginger sounded more like a medical receptionist. First, she thanked me for my patronage, then identified the establishment, and then with a felicity that’s fading from the modern day, asked how she might be of service. A place with lucid employees was a twist I hadn’t expected. She wasn’t rubbing Maui Waui from the edges of her words. I heard no Spearhead in the foreground, just the double-jab of a stapler.
Funny the things we learn on the phone. I was learning, most likely, Maurice was not a part-time junior college student, running a collective out of his car. I’d met a number of pot-repeneurs who neatly fit this bill. They were young, enterprising, media savvy, able to quietly run their rackets with a Verizon plan and a Yugo. Theirs were bare-bone, nimble ops, that thanks to the magic of digital technology were able to present themselves in any way they chose.
My favorite was a delivery service where the website evoked a pastoral setting, as though this wasn’t the Mexican border, but the Irish countryside. There were offers for deep tissue massage and new age spiritual counseling. Marijuana and cannabis were not mentioned; the only way to know you had stumbled into a marijuana business were references to health and safety code 11362.5. But who isn’t up on their legal code, right?
There were other clues, if you knew what to look for. Many linked visitors to state Senate Bill 420, and its voter-mandated predecessor, Proposition 215. Back in 1996, California became the first state in America to decriminalize marijuana for the seriously ill. It didn’t come without a fight. Even in pinko California, this was a hotly contested race. Critics called it “backdoor legalization” while supporters trotted out the critically ill. A vote against medical marijuana, they said, was a vote against anyone suffering the scourges of things like cancer and AIDS.
I agreed, but still I couldn’t help notice a cheshire cat grin on some activist faces when I asked if total legalization remained their lattermost goal. I was in college at the time, so clearly weed wasn’t so hard to come by. What did I care if folks wanted to get stoned? What bothered me about “The Compassionate Use Act” was a sense it was dancing around the truth. “If you want legalization, then say it, fool.” There is no such thing as medical marijuana. It isn’t grown in special labs and the term “medical marijuana” refers not to any chemical properties, but to the people who are smoking it.
All marijuana is medical marijuana—if you have a doctor’s note. Read more
| Filed Under First Person | 11 Comments
Artists Collective Now Open
Posted on November 16, 2008
It began as a seed. Just an idea. Medical marijuana businesses are required under California law to operate as non-profits. So why not launch a service that lives up to the law’s true spirit? We could provide safe access to the sick, and instead of marijuana money going to profiteers, we could take those funds and create opportunity grants for writers, artists, performers, musicians, and others whose work shows bonafide merit.
Californians spend between $870 million and $2 billion on medical marijuana every year. At Walkabout Jones, we think the best way to tell the story is to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty. Earlier this year, Dann worked undercover as a medical marijuana delivery driver in San Diego county, one of the most dangerous places to do this sort of work in the state.
Excerpts from his book “I Am the Monster” will appear on Walkabout Jones from time to time. Dann is a deliberate writer, so it won’t be fast. But you’ll appreciate the final result.
Now in Hollywood, Artists Collective will continue Walkabout Jones’ exploration into the world of medical marijuana, all while ensuring a significant portion of the proceeds go to creating opportunity grants for deserving artists.
It’s a big undertaking and it’s going to take time, but we know it’s a journey worth completing. And it’s a story that Dann will lead us through with his new weekly department/blog, “Hollywood Reefer.” A little rougher around the edges, it will chronicle the daily travails of a medical marijuana delivery driver in Los Angeles.
If you’re an MMJ patient in the LA area, and you like the idea of marijuana proceeds going to deserving artists, you can reach Artists Collective at 323-979-7822.
Please note: Artists Collective verifies all doctor’s letters and delivers to medical marijuana patients only.
On the philanthropic end, AC’s first giveaway is a short story contest. Artists Collective and Walkabout Jones request your best submissions, no more than two-thousand words. A $1,000 first prize and publication in Walkabout Jones will go to the winner. The entry deadline is January 31st. For additional guidelines, mail Artists Collective at artistsforaccess@gmail.com
| Filed Under Announcements | 4 Comments
Dad’s Last Drive
Posted on November 14, 2008
By Scott Tejerian
Ryan Adams’ “Let It Ride” from the Cold Roses album is cranking on “repeat” as I fly down the 10 West, from USC Medical Center to the Angeles Clinic in Brentwood. There’s something sadly optimistic about the song that feels like it’s meant for a road trip to heartbreak. It feels right because my dad is going to die, and the part of me not pissed off is pleased. This is what he deserves. This is his life lesson. I won’t make the same mistakes as him. I will listen to my son. I won’t challenge him on every idea. I will find inspiration and action in his words. But I drive fast anyway, for my mom and my sister, and because I’m not so heartless to let a man die—even if I know it could’ve been prevented if only he had listened to me.
From the look on the doctor’s face, we know the prognosis is grim. Even without the scans of dad’s liver—the ones I’m driving to retrieve—the doctor thinks surgery won’t be an option. He would need at least twenty percent of his liver to be free of the melanoma, and for a man whose liver’s so big he looks pregnant, the chances of that seem unlikely. But I drive fast anyway, knowing my dad is in pain and my family is counting on me.
I’m trying to be at peace with my father. For thirty-two years, I wanted him to listen, but it wasn’t critical until seven years ago when the first itsy bitsy, teeny tiny melanoma popped up on his retina. A check-up at the eye doctor, and congratulations, you have cancer! At twenty-five, it never occurred to me that my parents were mortal. My entire view of life shifted the moment the phone rang and dad said, “It’s nothing to worry about, but…”
A little laser beam took care of that teeny tiny, itsy bitsy melanoma on dad’s right retina. Hooray for modern medicine! Until six months later, when Tiny’s big bad brother showed up. No laser this time. Big bad brother refused to quit until they took dad’s right eye. But who needs two when you still have one?
Life went on. Dad was still walking, talking, laughing, and now he had a new set of lame jokes. His two favorites were covering his good eye and staring straight into the sun. Dad also enjoyed poking the marble with distressingly sharp objects. But beneath his veneer, and the jokes, I knew his new affliction was killing him emotionally. Though family and friends said Dad joked to put those around him at ease, I knew it was the other way around. Vanity had always been a weakness of Dad’s. Growing up in the family clothing store, image was everything. “When you look your best, you do your best” was a family motto. And now, for someone who took so much pride in his appearance, for the first few months after the surgery, he wouldn’t take a photograph unless he was wearing sunglasses. Read more
| Filed Under Diary | 12 Comments
We’re Moving
Posted on November 9, 2008
Walkabout Jones likes to talk in the third person, since this allows us to feel big and powerful and occasionally omnipotent. But the truth is we’re very small, with one full-time guy and family, friends and gracious people volunteering their time and talents to move this project forward. We’re a long way from where we aspire to be, but hopefully you’re beginning to get a taste of the kinds of stories we would like to publish on a regular basis.
But this week….well. I’m relocating from San Diego back to Los Angeles, and there just isn’t time to update the site. In addition to moving, we’re getting ready to launch Artists Collective, a medical marijuana delivery service that will raise money for the arts. More on that later, but sufficed to say, there are many chainsaws being juggled, and since the goal of Walkabout Jones is quality over quantity, I want every story to get the attention it deserves. So bear with me, and us. Let me get unpacked and settled in, and we’ll be back with more original content in the next few days.
Nanu nanu,
Dann
| Filed Under Announcements | 3 Comments
Living History
Posted on November 5, 2008
| Filed Under Signtology | 1 Comment
Deep Purple
Posted on November 2, 2008
By Christopher Foss
Bipartisan - [bahy-pahr-tuh-zuh n] - a word slathered across our consciousness during this election cycle by both U.S. political parties, with a special nod to the media, is of the same pedigree it might be argued as two other bi-words: bipolar and bisexual. The prefix-“bi” may suggest a comfortable melding of opposites, but in fact an “uneasy” relationship exists between the two, disparate yet conjoined elements. Then there is the suffix, “ship” in “bipartisanship,” which often denotes something positive, as in “sportsmanship,” “stewardship;” however, in the U.S. right now, the “ship” of “bipartisanship” is, well, adrift.
In this day and age of culture wars, identity politics, and red and blue state world views, it’s a stretch to imagine hardcore Republicans and Dems actually putting aside their differences to reach bipartisan consensus on the pressing issues of the day, or any day– issues like war, climate change, financial meltdown, or even a crazy little thing called “the pursuit of happiness.” (Note: happiness in America varies according to party affiliation; it can mean variously, life unfettered by excessive taxation, freedom to marry anyone and anything, and oh yes, it can refer to that precious 2nd Amendment right claimed by our frontier forefathers and Charlton Heston: the right to bear arms ‘til hell freezes over.)
The sad truth is that we have become a country of overt partisans, whose unalloyed allegiance to party makes every issue a referendum on party principle and loyalty. Nothing can get done or improved in this ultra-political environment. The many calls for bipartisanship in this context sound hollow, even absurd. They’re the equivalent of urging a bipolar gentleman that his manic side should embrace his depressed side. Not going to happen. Partisans are by definition fused to their identity as party loyalists; they don’t compromise really–just make deals as it suits them. No wonder the center—political or otherwise—cannot hold.
Not long ago, Barack Obama was spotted “overreaching across the aisle” when he declared that Americans should be able to find common ground on abortion– i.e. agree it’s bad, that there are alternatives, and that Right-to-Lifer’s need to chill baby.
Then on CNN recently, there was the spectacle of a McCain campaign spokesman declaring that Obama is not as bipartisan as McCain. Said head proclaimed that Obama’s reaching across the aisle to Senator Richard Lugar, in the effort to halt nuclear proliferation…doesn’t count. Holding the line against Armageddon is a no-brainer, the flak said, and therefore cannot be bipartisan. If this is the case, bipartisanship is only an excuse for passing non-emergency bills which betray core party principles. Like Democrats supporting tax breaks for oil companies.
Moreover, while implying the setting aside of differences for the greater good, bipartisanship has nothing whatsoever to do with compromise. Take the recent partisan maneuvering prior to passage of the emergency financial bailout legislation. During this entire charade, “bipartisanship” was the political watchword, code for the game of muscle-flexing being played. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the two parties coming together to resolve the financial mess we’re in.
Nowadays, true compromise rarely enters the picture, dressed as it is in bipartisan garb. It merely signals the political necessity of agreement among both parties for bills to get passed—not the making of good decisions for the country. The cardinal example of this, of course, is the Iraq war. Where was the honest and cold-eyed assessment of issues and risks? Or maybe the better question is: Where was partisan gridlock when we needed it? Read more
| Filed Under Washington Jones | 2 Comments
All Saints Day
Posted on November 1, 2008
| Filed Under Paparazzi | 2 Comments