Maud Gonne: Mystic, Revolutionary, Hashish Taker

UPDATE 10/15: Gonne is included in the new book Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory.

Spotted in Downton Abbey Season 3, episode 4: Lady Sybil and her Irish revolutionary boyfriend get into trouble, over which her father pulls strings to get them off the lam. "They're afraid with Sybil they'll have another Maud Gonne on their hands," he says.

 

"I had never thought to see in a living woman so great beauty. It belonged to famous pictures, to some legendary past," is how William Butler Yeats described the young Maud Gonne (1866-1953). Yeats proposed marriage several times to Gonne, and the two remained lifelong friends and compatriates in the Irish nationalist cause despite her refusals.

A young sophisticate who attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales at her coming-out party (pictured) and traveled throughout Europe. Shortly afterwards Gonne had her political awakening, and schooled herself in Irish history and Gaelic when she "witnessed with her own eyes, the brutal evictions, the unjust imprisonment of some of her friends" in Ireland under English rule. After her father died when she was 20, the statuesque (six-foot-tall) beauty tried her hand as an actress to earn a living until she discovered she was a wealthy heiress.

She traveled to Constantinople where she wished to experience the "real life of the East," but found it closed to her as a woman. In France, "she developed an oratorical style remarkable even in a country famous for its rhetoric," wrote Nancy Cardozo in Lucky Eyes and a High Heart, The Life of Maud Gonne. "She wrung tears from cynical politicians and sous from the pockets of students who adopted the eloquent young beauty and carried her off to speak to Republican and Catholic societies in the provinces...A thousand people gave her a standing ovation in Bordeaux." Over 2000 articles were published about her speeches in 1892 in France alone.

"What a singular scene," Yeats wrote that year. "This young girl of twenty-five addressing that audience of politicians, and moving them more than all their famous speakers although she spoke in a language not her own." Yeats compared her to Oscar Wilde's prodigious mother, known as Speranza.

Yeats took Gonne to a meeting of the Theosophical Society and introduced her to Madame Blavatsky, near the end of her life. Together Gonne and Yeats took hashish in Paris in 1894 in "an attempt to make themselves telepathic"; later they experimented with mescal given to Yeats by Havelock Ellis.

"I have to thank you for the dream drug which I have not tried as yet being very busy & having need of all my energy & activity for the moment but I mean to try it soon," Gonne wrote Yeats in April or May 1987. She was probably referring to hashish, or mescal.

Gonne's image was used in an ad for Vin Mariani, the coca-laced wine that had many famous enthusiasts. She said of it, "Your coca-wine by fortifying my voice will allow me make my beloved country better known." She used chloroform for insomnia, and the story goes that, substituting cannabis for her insomnia instead, had awoken one night to find herself apparently translated to the bedside of her sister Kathleen.

At one point, Gonne had a vision of she and Yeats in a past life "when they were brother and sister, sold into slavery in the Arabian desert and traveling together across endless sands." Having lost a child, Maud hoped her son might be reincarnated and asked Yeat's friend, the painter known as AE, how soon after its death a child might be reborn. Using cabalistic rituals Yeats had learned in the Golden Dawn, Maud "had a vivid encounter. She had been a priestess in ancient Egypt and had given false oracles for money under the influence of a priest who was her lover...AE received a similar vision of her in Egypt....Maud did not question her own clairvoyance."

Gonne raised two children and her "concern for her children and pleasure in sharing her love of children with her women friends is very evident in all her correspondence," wrote her biographer Margaret Ward.

On Easter 1900, Gonne founded the Daughters of Ireland, a revolutionary women's society for Irish nationalist women who, like herself, were considered unwelcome in male-dominated societies. In 1918, after the Irish Free State was established and Yeats named a Senator and a Nobel laureate, Gonne was arrested in Dublin and imprisoned in England for six months. "The day before her arrest she wrote to say that if I did not denounce the Government she renounced my society for ever," wrote Yeats. Gonne participated in a hunger strike while incarcerated, and used her experiences to further publicize the scandalous prison conditions.

Streisand Smoked With Sellers, But Not with Seth

UPDATE 11/23: Streisand's new memoir My Name is Barbra contains the revelation that she lost her virginity after smoking marijuana, something she claims she did only "rarely" before and after. The affair didn't end well, but the experience was illuminating. She writes, "At least it gave me some more material to work with....When I sang about wanting someone, for the first time I actually understood it."  

Writing about her first husband Elliott Gould, she says, “I wasn’t a pot smoker, although I do remember one night in LA when we went out with Peter Sellers and Britt Ekland. I must have had a puff or two of what they were smoking, or else I just got a contact high, because we were giggling all through dinner. At one point we were making up all sorts of crazy flavors for ice cream.”

Later in the book, she recounts calling her lyricists Marilyn and Alan Bergman for help after producer Ray Stark gave her a hash brownie at a party without telling her it was loaded, causing her heart to race. 

10/15: Streisand is included in the new book  Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory.

"It's still illegal?"

On Wednesday's Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Seth Rogen was praised for being brave enough to come out of the closet as a pot smoker, and was asked about others he'd smoked with: Snoop (check); James Franco (no); Paul Rudd and Sarah Silverman (yes, "a lot"). Rogen hadn't smoked weed with Willie, he said, but Cohen said that he had.

Perhaps the most surprising answer came when Rogen was asked if he'd smoked with Barbra Streisand, who played his mother in 2012's The Guilt Trip.

"No, but we talked about it a lot," Rogen said, adding, "She smoked weed with Peter Sellers though. That's the craziest shit ever!"

It's rather too bad Rogen and Streisand didn't toke up, on or off screen, in their "for airplanes only" movie, in which Streisand's character drinks when she needs to blow off steam, instead of using something more interesting (and less harmful, according to our President).

La Streisand tells George Segal, "Now I'm going to make you happy" as she lights a joint to share with him in the 1970 film The Owl and the Pussycat. 

She recounted to Rolling Stone in 1971:
 
"Since I get nervous in places like Vegas, it occurred to me to do this funny little routine - actually telling the audience about my hangup. The point was, you shouldn't rely on emotional crutches. It was almost a sermon - no crutches, people; crutches are a no-no. Then at the end, I'd take out a joint and light it. First, just faking it. Then I started lighting live joints, passing them around to the band. It was great - it relieved all my tensions. And I ended up with the greatest supply of grass ever. Other acts up and down the Strip heard about what I was doing - Little Anthony and the Imperials, people like that - and started sending me the best dope in the world. I never ran out."

Barbra, The Way She Is by Christopher Anderson (2006) says Streisand's role in The Way We Were was dependent on her appearing at a McGovern rally organized by Warren Beatty on April 15, 1972 at the LA Forum (pictured above). According to David Crosby's book, Stand and Be Counted, after a second standing ovation at the McGovern event, Barbra stopped to talk to the crowd, reprising her Vegas act.

Speaking of her stage fright, she said, "I was even more scared until I spoke to friends of mine, also performers you know, and they were telling me. . . that in order to conquer their fear. . . some of them drink. But I really hate the taste of liquor so I can't do that. Some of them take pills, but I can't even take aspirin." At that moment she took an exaggerated drag of what appeared to be a joint. After huge laugher and applause, she made a confused face and asked, "It's still illegal?" Taking another toke she spoke through clenched teeth (as though holding the smoke in) she said, "We should face our problems head on."

She then sang, "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" (with the trippy lyric, "You'll feel part of every mountain, sea and shore / You can hear, from far and near, a world you've never heard before.") She received a total of six standing ovations. Listen to a recording of her marijuana monologue.

Streisand's current husband, James Brolin, played a pivotal role as an outgoing drug "czar" in the anti–drug war movie Traffic (2000). Her first husband, Elliott Gould, said in 1974, "I have no problem with drugs." Not even marijuana? he was asked. "No one has a problem with marijuana," he replied. The actor told Playboy in 1970 (while married to Streisand), "I'm able to switch into certain inner places with marijuana. I've also taken a couple of trips that have been incredible." Gould puffed pot in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and appeared in the pot-friendly "Oceans 420" movies.

ADDENDUM 3/20: Streisand has published a HuffPo piece on carbon farming as a solution for climate change.

4/16: Anderson now claims Streisand had an affair with Prince Charles, who's been pretty open to medical marijuana. In December 1998, Charles surprised a Multiple Sclerosis sufferer by suggesting she try medical marijuana. Karen Drake, 36, said: "He said he had heard it was the best thing for relief from MS. In February 2000, Charles visited Trench Town, Jamaica, the neighborhood of late reggae legend Bob Marley, and was greeted by Marley's widow, Rita, and former bandmate Bunny Wailer. Mrs. Marley gave Charles a red, yellow and green Rastafarian knit hat with false dreadlocks, and the prince put it on.

11/15: Streisand has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, along with Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski, who introduced an amendment in June to prohibit the Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Administration from using money to interfere in state medical marijuana laws.

The Return of Ishtar the Healer on 4/20

UPDATE 10/15: Ishtar is included in the new book Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory. Easter will be on 4/20 again in 2025.

Many are posting around the news that Easter falls on 4/20 this year, with photos of goofy bunny rabbits smoking joints. But the joining of these two high holy days -- 4/20 and Easter Sunday -- has much greater significance.

Easter, the celebration of Jesus's resurrection, is the most sacred day of the Christian year. In ancient Babylon, around the spring equinox, people celebrated the resurrection of their god Tammuz, who was brought back from the underworld by his mother/wife Ishtar (pronounced “Easter” in most Semitic dialects). Flowers, painted eggs, and rabbits were the symbols of the holiday then, as now.

"In ancient Sumaria, Ishtar was held in high esteem as a heavenly monarch," writes Jeanne Achterberg in Woman as Healer. "Her temples have been found at virtually every level of excavation." The Ishtar Gate to the inner city of Babylon was considered one of the ancient wonders of the world.

Also called the Queen of Heaven, Ishtar was a compassionate, healing deity. A song to her follows:

Where you cast your glance, the dead awaken, the sick arise;

The bewildered, beholding yor face, find the right way.

I appear to you, miserable and distraught,

Tortured by pain, your servant,

Be merciful and hear my prayer.

A clay pot likely used for distillation of plant essences into medicines was found at a Sumerian grave site circa 5500 BC. At least until the Semitic invasions circa 2600 BC, "women were allowed to practice healing with little or no restriction. Female occupations included doctor, scribe, barber, and cook."  After 1000 BC women were excluded from formal education and by 700 BD, neither scribe nor doctor were listed as women's occupations, but rather several types of entertainer, midwife, nurse, sorceress, wet nurse, and two kinds of prostitute.

As the land of Sumer became a perpetual battlefield, Ishtar became the goddess of war and destiny, "and slowly, insidiously, there crept in more praises for her sexuality, and fewer for her healing nature," writes Actenberg. "As Ishtar was seen as more sexual and promiscuous, the holy women were transformed into harlots and associated with decadence and orgies, devoid of any holy significance."

In mankind's first written story The Epic of Gilgamesh (circa 2000 BC),  the cruel king Gilgamesh calls Ishtar "a predatory and promiscuous woman, and rebukes her advances" just before taking off with his buddy Enkidu to chop down the great cedar forest. Even Spark notes tells us, "Gilgamesh’s repudiation of Ishtar, some scholars say, signifies a rejection of goddess worship in favor of patriarchy in the ancient world." 

In the bible, Ishtar or her (sometimes) mother Asherah are called Ashtoreth, the supreme goddess of Caanan and the female counterpart of the gods called Baal or Bel. "The immoral rites with which the worship of Ishtar in Babylonia was accompanied were transferred to Canaan and formed part of the idolatrous practices which the Israelites were called upon to extirpate," says BibleStudyTools.com.

Among those pagan, idolatrous practices was the burning of incense. Polish anthropologist Sula Benet, whose 1936 doctoral thesis ''Hashish in Folk Customs and Beliefs'' won her a Warsaw Society of Sciences scholarship for graduate study at Columbia University, theorized that the biblical incense kaneh bosm, meaning "sweet or good cane" was cannabis, mistranslated as "calamus" in the modern bibles.

Throughout the Old Testament, prophet after prophet warns the children of Israel that God will bring misery upon them unless they cease to worship Baal/Bel and Ashtoreth, to whom “burnt offerings” were made. In Jeremiah 44, the women tell him they will continue to secretly burn incense to the Queen of Heaven. One who did so was King Ahab's wife Jezebel (whose name meant "worshipper of Bel" but still means "harlot" today).

Some have tried to debunk the Ishtar/Easter connection, saying the holiday is only named after the German goddess Ostara (pictured), "the divinity of the radiant dawn" (Grimm), doubtlessly a reincarnation of Ishtar, who the Babylonians called "the morning star" and "the perfect light."

Ladies, and gentlemen: it's time to resurrect Ishtar, and all that our healing goddess stood for.

UPDATE 3/16: CBS This Morning had a male commentator say it was "doubtful" that there was a connection between the German goddess Ostara and the Easter Bunny, yet he traced the source of the hare to German immigrants to the US.

ADDENDUM 3/17/14: This year just keeps getting holier. Yesterday I attended a Purim celebration, in honor of the Jewish heroine Esther, who delivered her people from a Persian king with her beauty and a really great wardrobe. According to Wikipedia, Esther's name may be derived from Ishtar: "The Book of Daniel provides accounts of Jews in exile being assigned names relating to Babylonian gods and "Mordecai" [Esther's uncle] is understood to mean servant of Marduk, a Babylonian god." Purim, it turns out, is a big party day in the Jewish calendar, with food, drinks, masks and merriment.

And today I learn of another coincidence this year: St. Patrick's Day and India's "High Holiday," Holi.

4/17/14: Researcher Chris Bennett found this reference: "Ishtar... may be identified with Eostre of the Germans, or Easter. To this goddess our Saxon or German ancestors sacrificed in April...from thence arose our word Easter, which the Saxons retained after their conversion to Christianity, so that our Easter-day is nothing more nor less than Ishtar's day." 

Also these: "the herb called Sim.Ishara 'aromatic of the Goddess Ishtar,' which is equated with the Akkadian qunnabu, 'cannabis,' may indeed conjure up an aphrodisiac through the association with Ishara, goddess of love, and also calls to mind the plant called ki.na Istar, equated with the Akkadian term qunnabu..." -Assyriologist Prof. Erica Reiner (Source.)

"…[T]he multifaceted goddess Ishara. She does not appear to be a native Mesopotamian deity, but was worshipped by many people throughout the ancient Near East… she was a goddess of love with close affinities to Ishtar, whose sacred plant cannabis (qunnabu) was known as the aromatic of Ishara… from her widespread worship she is also known as the queen of the inhabited world."
-Gavin White, BABYLONIAN STAR-LORE:
An Illustrated Guide to the Star-lore and
Constellations of Ancient Babylonia (Source.)

International Women's Day: A Celebration of Activism

This year, I'm celebrating International Women's Day with a tribute to women who make things happen in the human rights realm.

My week started with the news that California Governor Jerry Brown said essentially on "Meet the Press" that "potheads" aren't productive members of the workforce and in this competitive world we can't afford to legalize marijuana.

I started designing an ad featuring productive "potheads" like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Carl Sagan and Barack Obama. Casting about for a woman to add to the mix, I hit upon the perfect addition in Jennifer Aniston. "I wouldn't call myself a pothead. I mean, I enjoy it once in a while. There's nothing wrong with that. Everything in moderation," Aniston told Rolling Stone in 2001, before it was vogue to make such an admission.

Commenting on anonymous reports in the tabloids about Aniston and then-husband Brad Pitt's "drug use," Aniston said, "You see something like that--me and my husband, hooked on drugs. Then you read the story, and it says you smoke pot. It's not even cocaine or shooting heroin. Pot!"

Obviously, occasional indulgence in marijuana hasn't impeded Aniston's career, or harmed her health. Her comments about moderation and the differences between hard and soft drugs are important messages seldom heard in the lock-step 'just say no' repression we live under. For this Aniston received the first "Outie" award, presented by the tongue-in-cheekly-named site www.VeryImportantPotheads.com.

It hasn't been noted here that Susan Sarandon, a champion of human rights, has made some brave admissions of her own (right) in the new issue of AARP.  She's dating a younger man, dancing the night away, and still finding time to be a mother, a career woman, and a human rights advocate.

I recently saw the documentary PoliWood, exploring the role of celebrities in politics, and in it Sarandon asked the most intelligent questions of all. For giving us the pot-smoking savant Annie Savoy in Bull Durham, and for acting on her conscious conscience in all aspects of her life, Sarandon is celebrated here today.

I'd like to celebrate the difference one young woman made in her community of Shasta county, California and to acknowledge the work  Kerry Reynolds from KMUD radio is doing with her excellent weekly cannabis news reports and monthly Cannabis Consciousness show. Attorney Jennifer Ani is working tirelessly to protect mothers' right to raise their children, and another attorney, Kathleen Bryson of Eureka, California, is hosting an environmental forum for marijuana farmers today in Humboldt county. Diane Goldstein has been representing LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) across California, and Cheri Sicard of LA NORML Women's Alliance has been highlighting people serving life sentences for marijuana.

Last but certainly not least, I'd like to mention the original, pioneering female cannabis activist Michelle Aldrich, who was featured in the Washington Post's remarkable article and video about the history of marijuana law reform. (The Post also recently reported on the "Mommy Lobby.") And here's a special shout-out to the Sacramento NORML Women's Alliance for their support of this project.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has," said Margaret Mead (who testified in favor of marijuana legalization in 1969 and said she'd tried it too).

Oscar Winner Jared Leto Thanks Pot-Smoking Mom

As expected, Jared Leto won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of a transsexual in the "Dallas Buyers Club" (pictured). He thanked his mother, his date for the night.

"Thank you for teaching me to dream," said Leto.

When asked recently what was his favorite smell, Leto replied, "The smell of bonfires. And of marijuana. My mom's friends always smoked that."

Matthew McConaughey—who broke out in the stoner flick "Dazed and Confused" and arrested in 1999 for smoking pot and playing bongos in the nude—won Best Actor, also for "Dallas Buyers Club." The Best Actress awards went to Cate Blanchett in "Blue Jasmine" and Lupita Nyong’o in "12 Years a Slave."

Spike Jonze, who directed "Being John Malkovich" and produced "Jackass" won best original screenplay for "Her," about a man's relationship with an  operating system "designed to meet his every need." Thus faux women took as many Oscars as did real ones.

The event was hosted by Ellen DeGeneres, who recently Tweeted about pot being available in The Ellen Shop and told a pot joke the last time she hosted the show (and this year delivered munchies).

Pink did a fantastic job singing "Over the Rainbow" in front of images of the poppy fields and the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz. In 2002, the singer-turned-mascara-model said, "I don't consider pot a drug. It's a plant. It comes from the earth. George Washington smoked pot." [Not necessarily true, but he did grow hemp and encourage others to "sow it everywhere."]

Female empowerment song "Let It Go," with the trippy lyric: "My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around" won best song. Bette Midler, who just played pot-loving Hollywood agent Sue Mengers in a one-woman play, sang "The Wind Beneath My Wings" for the yearly memorial tribute, which omitted screenwriter and drug war activist Mike Gray. 

Angelina Jolie was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her "courageous, compassionate work" to aid women and children throughout the world. (She's smoked pot, but said she didn't like it.) "The Great Gatsby" won deserved Oscars for Best Costumes and Production Design; I think there was more to it than that.

Steve Martin, who "poked smot" with Meryl Streep and was "feelin' groovy" in 2010's "It's Complicated," received an honorary Oscar. He made no comment tonight like he did when he got the Mark Twain Prize for Humor in 2006, when he joked, ""If [Saturday Night Live producer] Lorne Michaels had told me I'd receive this award one year after him, I'd have said, 'Let me have a hit of that.'" When he appears with his Bluegrass band, the banjo-playing comedian jokes about the downside of touring without a drummer: "No pot!"

This was not the case for attendees, according to TMZ, which reported some LA cannabis delivery services had to hire more drivers to service the celebs during Oscar week. Portable vaporizers were particularly popular.

Leto said upon accepting his award, "This is for the 36 million people who have lost their battle with AIDS, and to those of you out there who have ever felt injustice because of who you are or who you love. I stand here in front of the world with you and for you."

Another Buyers Club connected with the AIDS crisis was Dennis Peron's Cannabis Buyers Club, which opened following San Francisco's passage of the first-ever medical marijuana law in 1992. We wouldn't have medical marijuana in California or the other 20 states where it's now legal if it weren't for AIDS activists who fought for their right to life-saving medicines of all kinds. A recent study found that, as with cancer, marijuana may not only help with the symptoms AIDS, it may cure it.

Bewitched, Bhang-ered and Bewildered

The Colorado NORML Women's Alliance has posted this photo (right) of Agnes Moorehead as Endora in TV's Bewitched smoking a hookah.

The shot is from episode #69 of the series, titled "Divided He Falls," which first aired on  May 5, 1966. In the story, Endora splits her daughter Samantha's straight hubby into his fun and work sides, so that the fun Darrin can accompany Sam on vacation.

When Endora works her magic, the screen is filled with green smoke. (Her character is introduced every week in a cartoon as black smoke.) Witches throughout the centuries have been associated with herbal medicine and persecuted for it.

The splitting of Darrin's personality is a rather apt metaphor for our divided culture: we simply can't accept that people can be hard working by day and smoke something fun at night. In the end of the episode, Darrin is re-integrated (as should be our society). 

According to the website "The Prop is Familiar" the same hookah was also smoked by Endora in episodes 71 ("The Catnapper," shown left) and 154 ("Samantha's Super Maid").

Dr. Bombay, the family's warlock doc, gets in on the hookah action in episode 107 ("There's Gold in Them Thar Pills"). The Old Man of the Mountain, the historic character who converted his assassins with hashish, smoked a larger hookah in episode 217 ("Return of Darrin the Bold").

Episode #163, called Tabitha's Weekend, which aired on March 6, 1969 has an interesting exchange after Endora is offered cookies by Darrin's (straight) mother:

"They're not by chance from an Alice B. Toklas recipe?" Endora asks. When told they were not, "Then I think I'll pass," is her answer. Tabitha, the junior witch, then turns herself into a cookie. Mrs. Stevens suffers from headaches and gulps the more prosaic sherry.

Moorehead, who had a long career on stage and in films, died of cancer in 1974. She was one of several cast members of the 1956 film The Conqueror who contracted cancer after being exposed to radiation while filming in Utah 137 miles downwind of the United States government's Nevada National Security Site. Three years earlier, extensive above-ground nuclear weapons testing occurred at the test site. The cast and crew totaled 220 people. By 1981, 91 of them had developed some form of cancer and 46, including John Wayne, had died of the disease.

Ironically, the government that assured filmmakers the site was safe also withhold the herb that not only relieves the effects of cancer and chemotherapy, it may well halt the progression of the disease. Yes, Dr. Bombay should recommend it. 

UPDATE 1/5/2015: TV's The Addams Family, from the same era, also regularly featured a hookah. 

Putting a Sassy Stamp on It: Sarah Vaughan Gets USPS Approval

UPDATE 4/16: Two days after Vaughan's 92nd birthday, her US postage stamp was released.

10/15: Vaughan is included in the new book Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory.

The Washington Post has leaked a list of luminaries for whom US postage stamps have been approved or are in the works. Listed as "in design development" are VIPs Janis Joplin and Steve Jobs. Approved subjects not yet in the design stage include VIPs Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Jim Morrison, Fats Waller, Freddie Fender and John Lennon.

Another honoree on the list who was not previously known as a Tokin Woman is the incomparable jazz singer Sarah Vaughan (pictured left).

According to Sassy: The Life of Sarah Vaughan by Leslie Gourse, in 1943 Vaughan joined the Earl Hines band, which featured Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker ("Bird"). Gillespie told people, "Sarah can sing notes that other people can't even hear," something he also said about Parker's sax playing.

Sarah, the band members say, wisely never had anything to do with heroin, though "undoubtedly she smoked marijuana with Bird and some of the other men on the road.....all night long, she liked to have a party, either in her room, or in Johnnie Garry's, or at some place in town. Sometimes the party was a marathon, with Sassy hanging out for three days at a time, never going to sleep, taking part in every kind of refreshment available--cigarettes, drinks, food, marijuana, maybe cocaine if there was any."

British jazz singer Annie Ross, who worked with Vaughan in the 1950s, was interviewed for Gourse's biography, which says, "As a very young woman, Annie, like Sassy, had enormous energy for a life in the fast lane; together they stayed up all night, drinking and smoking. Sassy liked marijuana and cocaine."

 

(Above: Vaughan dueting on the Ed Sullivan show in November 1957 with Billy Eckstine, who was targeted for a marijuana bust, as was his wife June.)

Buster Williams was 20 years old when Vaughan hired him in 1963, generously buying him a bass to play in her band. Gourse writes that Williams smoked marijuana for the first time with Sarah. "She had the uncanny ability to make her voice shimmer," he said.

Vaughan was still enjoying marijuana in April 1989, when Katie Neubauer, an organizer for the Tri C Jazz Fest in Cleveland "was wandering around backstage at the theater when she smelled heady marijuana smoke. She followed the scent to Sassy's dressing room, where the star was also enjoying a glass of brandy. Sassy then walked onstage and gave a magnificent performance. Katie was amazed that Sassy could perform so well while under the influence of brandy and marijuana." Afterwards, while Vaughan was chatting with scholarship funders at a cocktail party, Katie overheard Clark Terry say, "I wish that I could do with my trumpet what that woman does with her voice." Vaughan then presented Katie with a bouquet of roses she'd been given, saying "I can't take these on the road."

Asked by Dick Cavett if she could live up to her old nickname Sailor, "Sassy grinned, completely at ease, candid and articulate, and said she could outcuss Popeye, the Sailor Man. Would she give a sample? 'I most certainly will not,' she said with her very ladylike sweetness."

Born on March 27, 1924 Vaughan died in 1990. Village Voice jazz critic Gary Giddins called hers "the voice that happens once in a lifetime, perhaps once in several lifetimes."

Sarah's contemporary Ella Fitzgerald, who recorded "When I Get Low, I Get High" in the 1930s, already has a postage stamp.

P.S. I just read that Stuff Smith's "If You're a Viper," recorded by Fats Waller in 1943, was first recorded by blues singer Rosetta Howard in 1938. 

Miley Cyrus Tours in Cannabis-Leaf Leotard

UPDATE 10/15: Cyrus is included in the new book Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory.

Miley Cyrus, recipient of the 2013 Tokin Woman "Blunt Move of the Year" award for toking up onstage at the European Music Awards, has tweeted out an interesting wardrobe choice (left) from her 2/14 Vancouver concert to her 17 million followers.

Perhaps celebrating the fact that the US government has issued regulations allowing marijuana businesses to open bank accounts, Cyrus then crawled around in piles of money, while wearing cowboy boots emblazoned with dollar bills.

As CelebStoner.com points out, Cyrus also has a marijuana-themed website for her tour. And yeah, she's still sticking out her tongue.

Cyrus will take the stage in Tacoma, WA on Sunday before traveling to California for shows in Anaheim, Los Angeles and Oakland.

The singer recently announced she was proud of herself for refraining from smoking cigarettes for the past two months.  "I just want it to be back to where it's, like, organic, good weed," she told Ronan Farrow for the March issue of W Magazine. (For that, she's touring in all the right places.)

Cyrus also tweeted a picture of a guy smoking a huge pipe with the hashtag #superbowl on February 3.

Daughter of Marijuana Smuggler Wins At Olympics

Californian Julia Mancuso has become the most-medaled female skiier with her bronze win at the Sochi Olympics.

According to Wikipedia, Julia's father, Ciro Mancuso, was arrested and convicted of running a $140 million marijuana smuggling operation when Julia was five years old. Mancuso's sentence was greatly reduced because of his cooperation with the government in cases against other alleged organization members, and his lawyer Patrick Hallinan. As a result of his assistance to the government, Mancuso was reportedly allowed to keep $5 million in proceeds from his trafficking business.

It's kind of reminiscent of Shakespeare's father, who became a civic leader while smuggling illegal wool. When the government cracked down on the practice, young Will's education was interrupted and he was unable to attend a University, like his rival Christopher Marlowe. Source.

A new documentary about marijuana smugglers called Grounded just won a prize at the won Best Feature at the Pittsburgh Independent Film Festival and an Audience Award at The Skyline Indie Fest.

Also see: Seeming Stoners Win First-Ever Slopestyle Snowboarding Gold Medals

Father of US figure skater Jason Brown's coach is a "hippie" pot-grower

Seeming Stoners Win First-Ever Slopestyle Snowboarding Gold Medals

The first US Gold Medal at the Sochi Olympics went to 20-year-old Sage Kotsenburg, who hadn't even been expected to make the team. "Whoa how random is this, I made the finals," Kotsenburg tweeted, and told reporters "I'm so stoked to be here," at a post-win press conference, leading to puzzlement by Russian translators.

On a course so controversially dangerous that one of the riders broke his collarbone in practice, Kotsenberg decided at the last minute to try a trick he had never performed before for his Olympic run. He called his brother named (no kidding) Blaze to get his approval before attempting a backside 1620 Japan (which entails rotating 4 1/2 times) and winning the gold.

The following day, Jamie Anderson of South Lake Tahoe, California -- a clear favorite to win the women's slopestyle competition -- also won a gold for the US. Anderson called the opportunity to compete in the games "mind blowing" and said she was going into the event with "an open heart and open mind." She ended her interview with "namaste" and a flashed a peace sign.

Slate.com reported:

Based on the personalities of the two American gold medalists, it seems like being a slopestyle competitor is good for the soul. Despite all the pressure, Anderson—just like Sage Kotsenburg the day before—was maddeningly chilled out, sounding like a stereotypical stoner during interviews. In fact, her blissed-out attitude probably puts a lot of stoners to shame. 

It’s little wonder that British bronze medalist Jenny Jones calls Anderson “a bit of a hippy,” as Reuters notes. She wears “mantra beads” around her neck that were made by her yoga teacher in Breckenridge, who “made them for me with sacred energy put into them.” Anderson also wears a large quartz crystal she describes as “a powerstone” and a triangular moonstones, explains the Washington Post. And that’s just for starters. “You should see what’s in my backpack,” she said, according to Yahoo Sports. “A medicine bundle.”

The first-ever "straight" snowboarding medal was won by Canadian Ross Rebagliati in 1998, but he was almost stripped of his medal after testing positive for marijuana after the race. Rebagliati admitted that he had smoked marijuana in the past, but said the positive test was the result of accidentally inhaling nearby marijuana smoke at a going away party in his hometown of Whistler, BC. The Olympic committee allowed Rebagliati to keep his medal and he is now opening a medical marijuana dispensary specializing in "Ross's Gold."

Last year, the World Anti-Doping Agency that governs Olympic drug testing raised the threshold for marijuana tests from 15 ng/ml to 150 ng/ml of urine. Rebagliati had 17.8 ng/ml of THC in his urine and would have passed by today's standard.

Meanwhile, the author of an article in the National Law Review frets about workplace safety in the wake of the legalization wave. But if these Olympians are any indication, maybe the problem is that our workers aren't smoking enough to embrace life with the proper enthusiasm.

Also see: Daughter of Marijuana Smuggler Wins At Olympics.

Update 2/14: The US men's team were "stoked" to sweep the podium in slopestyle skiing, leading Bill Maher to joke it's "a sport invented by white stoners who call each other 'brah'." In the women's halfpipe snowboarding competition, Kaitlyn Farrington and Kelly Clark of the US team took the gold and bronze medals. Teammate Hannah Teter came in fourth, calling it "a bummer."

2/16:  An article about the relaxed standard for marijuana drug tests at the Olympics says, "Officials say that means an athlete who smoked some weed before the Olympics, or inhaled second-hand smoke, wouldn’t likely test positive in Sochi. Someone who failed the new test would have to be 'a pretty dedicated cannabis consumer,' WADA officials have said.

"Officials acknowledge that they have had problems finding the right balance between athletes who use marijuana to cheat and those who just enjoy a toke every now and then. Arne Ljungqvist, who heads the IOC’s medical commission and is also on WADA’s board, said the changes came after a long debate about the drug."

Ljungqvist said WADA came to the conclusion that “marijuana can be a performance enhancing stimulant and it is therefore forbidden in relation to a competition.” However, because marijuana “is a socially more or less an accepted drug being used in social context” the threshold for a positive test during competition was increased.

"Marijuana has been controversial for years at WADA and there have been plenty of calls to drop it from the banned list," the Globe and Mail article stated. "Just about everyone agrees that taking marijuana immediately before a competition wouldn’t help, but some argue that dope can reduce stress, speed recovery and provide other advantages."

UPDATE 2/21: Anderson is considered "snowboarding's queen bee," says Forbes. She won gold again in 2018, a third Olympic medal, and 17 X Games medals, making her the winningest woman in X Games herstory. 

Anderson came back after a crash in 2019 that caused her to suffer a facial contusion to again win gold at the X Games Aspen in 2020. Olay Body has now dubbed her a “winter warrior,” someone who "pushes past the bitter cold to overcome anything and be fearless in her skin."

“I think it only takes a handful of role models who are like, ‘It’s cool to party and all, but I value feeling good and letting my body heal and recover and being able to perform at my highest level,’” Anderson told Forbes. “It seems to be in snowboarding it’s more so trending to be really healthy and conscious because everyone just wants to feel good.” The Jamie Anderson Give Back With Love program was established in 2013 to "offer scholarships and help kids get into sports and live healthy, active lifestyles."  

Anderson, who just turned 30, lives with her boyfriend, fellow pro snowboarder Tyler Nicholson, in Whistler (Rebagliati's home town). 

Pussy Riot Tries It (in the Netherlands)

During a remarkable interview on the Colbert Report, Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina of Pussy Riot talked about their release from jail in Russia and their tour of prisons in other countries, speaking out about human rights abuses.

After they noted that there is a giant gap between the wonderful prisons in the Netherlands and those in the US, Colbert said, "I think all the prisoners in the Netherlands get to smoke pot, so people actually have a wonderful time while they're in there."

"Yeah, we had a great time there too," Masha said knowingly.

"We sang a fun song in a church," was the succinct way the young women answered the question about why they were jailed. Among their fun songs, they said, was one called "Putin Piss Off."

The mock conservative Colbert joked he would edit out any parts of their interview criticizing his friend Vladimir. They responded, "That's OK, we're making our own taping right now." Told in that case they would be searched, they said, "We've had two years of practice hiding things from searches."

The women called their release a "public relations stunt" for the Sochi Olympics and called attention to the 12 people imprisoned after the May 6 protest in Bolotnaya Square, serving terms ranging from 5-6 years. "While this is happening, no PR stunt can fix Russia's image."

Watch Part One of the interview here, and their comments about the Netherlands below:

Musgraves Follows Her Arrow -- To a Joint and Two Grammys

 

UPDATE 5/25: Musgraves told The Hollywood Reporter, "I never said I don’t ever partake, I just don’t wake up and hit a gravity bong the size of my face anymore, which is what I did for a long time. But, hey, more power to whatever suits you.”

UPDATE 11/19: Musgraves crushed it at the 2019 CMA awards, where she had beautiful things to say about the female creative spirit, and how the earth needs it right now, while picking up one of two big awards. She also dueted with Willie Nelson, and the evening's hostesses joked about her enjoying "Willie's Reserve":

Carrie Underwood & Dolly Parton shout out Willie’s Reserve at the CMA’s @KaceyMusgraves @WillieNelson @reba @carrieunderwood @DollyParton @BioAnnie1 pic.twitter.com/4U7k7LK6xb

— Willie's Reserve (@WilliesReserve) November 18, 2019

UPDATE 9/19 : Sheryl Crow's kids thought Kacey Musgraves' marijuana was bad skunk

UPDATE 4/19: Kacey Musgraves as Bongs: A Twitter Thread

UPDATE 5/18: Musgraves guested on "Hello Sunshine" with Reese Witherspoon, who said she loves "Follow Your Arrow" because it was the first country song she'd heard about alternative lifestyles. 

UPDATE  5/16: 

 

Musgraves says one of the first songs she wrote after she moved to Nashville was "Burn One With John Prine" before singing the song to Prine on a cruise ship, after which they duet on "Illegal Smile." 

UPDATE 7/15 - Musgraves has a new album sprinkled with pot references "like dab hits," along with a Willie Nelson duet, says CelebStoner. She will tour this summer starting July 9 in the US and UK. 

UPDATE 12/14 - Adding to her award count, Musgraves scores a Tokey for Best Video from Tokin Woman. 

Singer/songwriter Kacey Musgraves was nominated for four Grammys this year and on January 26 she won two: Best Country Album ("Same Trailer Different Park") and Best Country Song ("Merry Go Round").  The 25-year-old newcomer performed the song she co-wrote with Brandy Clark, "Follow Your Arrow," on the nationally televised awards ceremony, with the lyric:

Make lots of noise
Kiss lots of boys
Or kiss lots of girls
If that’s something you’re into
When the straight and narrow 
Gets a little too straight  
Roll up a joint or don't (I would) 
Just follow your arrow 
Wherever it points

The fresh-faced Musgraves looks a lot more like Princess Kate than a stereotypical pothead. The video for "Follow Your Arrow" features Musgraves in Daisy-Duke-short shorts, a cowboy hat and toy guns, reminiscent of the act of VIP Candy Barr. Like Tokin Woman Besse Smith on her 1937 recording of "Gimmie a Pigfoot," Musgraves waits until the last verse to add her own reefer admission. She sang it with the "I would" on the show.

In March 2013 the Hollywood Reporter called Musgraves "The Weed-Smoking, Ball-Busting, Girl-Kissing Country Singer," and reported in 2011, when "she signed to Lost Highway Records, the boutique division of Universal Nashville...for left-of-center artists" she "was doing sit-down acoustic gigs" playing songs with lyrics like, “My idea of heaven is to burn one with John Prine.” (The first song on the first John Prine album was "Illegal Smile.")

"Mild evocations of lesbian smooching and marijuana may not seem radical outside the world of mainstream country," the Reporter continued. "But it seemed like a huge risk when Musgraves chose that song, of all the ones on her album, to perform at a UMG luncheon for hundreds of country radio programmers at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium last month. Any doubts she had about performing the song disappeared when attendees started laughing uproariously after the first line and applauding furiously after the first chorus. Afterward, the radio types were all abuzz about what a brilliantly catchy and clever ditty it was… and how they could never play it on their stations." (Country fans: call your local stations and request this song!)

Musgraves' "Same Trailer Different Park" album jumped to No. 12 from No. 28 on the Billboard chart after the win. The "Follow Your Arrow" video has had 2 million views (see it below):

Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas and Jenny Reefer

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas

Born on February 3, 1874 was the hostess with the mostest, art collector extraordinaire, avant-garde writer and wit Gertrude Stein.

Much has been made of Stein's longtime companion Alice B. Toklas and her hashish fudge, a recipe for which appears in The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, published in 1954. When Toklas's American publisher objected to the "illegal" recipe, she reportedly feared many would assume Stein's writing happened while under the influence (which certainly seems possible, if you read it).

Toklas disavowed knowledge of the recipe, writing in a letter to Donald Gallup* composed on 12-19-21 October 1954, "I hope you were as shocked as I was by the notice in Time of the hashish fudge. I was also furious until I discovered it really was in the cook book! Contributed by one of Carl's most enchanting friends—Brion Gysin—so that the laugh was on me. Thornton [Wilder] said that no one would believe in my innocence as I had pulled the publicity stunt of the year—that Harper had telegraphed from London to the Attorney General to see if there would be any trouble in printing it." Hear Toklas reading the recipe and commenting about it in a 1963 interview.   

It's possible that Stein and Toklas were more conduits for a younger generation of partakers, like Gysin and his friend VIP Paul Bowles, who lived with Stein and Toklas for a time. The Lost Generation was, after all, mostly lost in liquor. However, among Stein's art purchases was the first painting ever sold by Marie Laurencin, which appears to be a painting of a hashish party held in 1908.

Robert Indiana's costume for Jenny Reefer.

An interesting character by the name of Jenny Reefer appears in "The Mother of Us All," a 1947 opera about the life and career of suffragette Susan B. Anthony for which Stein wrote the libretto. Reefer is described as "a mezzo-soprano; a comical feminist, outspoken and opinionated." Sounds like a pothead to me.

Stein and Toklas's greatest significance was in bringing expatriate writers and artists together at their Parisian salon. That tradition was carried on by 1970s superagent and pot lover Sue Mengers, of whom CBS President Leslie Moonves said,  “She was the modern-day Gertrude Stein. People would gather and exchange ideas and talk about things that were not talked about anywhere else in town.” Tokin' Woman Mama Cass Eliot was also compared to Stein. 

Kathy Bates played Stein in Midnight in Paris; Pat Carroll played her in the one-woman show Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted in 1989 to rename a block of Myrtle Street between Polk Street and Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco as Alice B. Toklas Place, since Toklas was born one block away on O'Farrell Street.

Agnes Moorehead as Endora in TV's Bewitched

In the 1968 film I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, Leigh Taylor-Young turns Peter Sellers onto pot brownies, causing him to transform.

An episode called "Tabitha's Weekend" that aired on TV's Bewitched on March 6, 1969 has this interesting exchange: Endora (the grandmother witch) is offered cookies by Darrin's (straight) mother. "They're not by chance from an Alice B. Toklas recipe?" Endora asks. When told they were not, "Then I think I'll pass," is her answer. Tabitha, the junior witch, then turns herself into a cookie. (Mrs. Stevens suffers from headaches and gulps the more prosaic sherry.)

Perhaps this is why Rob Thomas, the singer/songwriter of the highly successful band Matchbox Twenty, called his first band "Tabitha's Secret." (Thomas tells CelebStoner he's a "huge" pothead and advocate for legalization.)

*Donald Gallup was a well-known scholar of American Literature, who served as the curator of the Yale Collection of American Literature for over thirty years. In 1940-41 he and Robert B. Haas prepared for the Yale University Library A Catalogue of the Published and Unpublished Writings of Gertrude Stein, and he and began collecting Stein and Toklas's materials after meeting them while he was stationed in Paris during World War II. In 1958 he succeeded Carl Van Vechten as the literary executor of the Stein estate. 

Apparently Gallup and Van Vechten (presumably, the Carl of mention) had a hand in producing Alice's cookbook. Toklas wrote, "It's not necessary to tell you that the pieces selected and their arrangement move me deeply. Gertrude always used to say—Let's put them first into groups and then break them up by contrasts—which is just what you have done. You and Carl have done such marvels because of the purity of your purpose which permits inspiration to flow unimpeded. Thank you—dear Donald." 

Gertrude and Alice met the younger painter and writer Brion Gysin in the 1930s when he lived in Paris. Toklas wrote Gysin in Tangiers on 26 February 1952, giving motherly advise about finances, and calling Jane Bowles [the wife of VIP Paul Bowles, a friend of Gysin's]  "strange as an American but not as an Oriental." She signed off, "Affectionate good wishes to you—dear Brion always." Bowles had lived with Stein and Toklas. On 24 February 1954 she wrote to Gysin offering help with a UNESCO investigation being conducted on him. On 11 June 1957 she wrote congratulating him on a New York showing, signing it, "So many good wishes to you and fond love." On 27 November 1958, in a letter to Ned Rorem, she wrote that Gysin "is here [in Paris, or maybe staying with her] and painting beautifully—working hard." 

On 14 March 1953, Toklas wrote to her friend Louise Taylor, letting her know that in order to receive an advance on the cookbook, she needed to come up with 12,000 more words, and so was opening up a chapter to contributions from friends. She asked Taylor if she could include Taylor's Circassian Chicken recipe, and said she would be including contributions from the Van Vechtens, Marie Laurencin, Isabel Wilder, and "undoubtedly" Brion Gysin. She complained in the letter of exhaustion from jaundice; Toklas was in ill health and so depended on contributions from friends. The book has a section titled, "Recipes from Friends," in which the Hashish Fudge recipe appears, attributed to Gysin and misspelling cannabis as "cannibus." 

On 24 April 1953, Toklas wrote to Carl (who she called "Sweetest and only Papa Woojums") about the "difficulty in getting the miserable cook book finished" which had been a "tormenting and very unsatisfactory effort." (In this letter she recounts the last words of Baby (Stein). "About Baby's last words. She said upon waking from a sleep—What is the question. And I didnt answer thinking she was not completely awakened. Then she said again—What is the question and before I could speak she went on—If there is no question then there is no answer."

Source: Letters of Alice B. Toklas: Staying on Alone. Edited by Edward Burns. Vintage Books Edition, January 1975.