RIP "Sister Bobbie" Nelson

Bobbie Nelson, Willie's older sister who played keyboards in his band for nearly 50 years, passed away on March 10 at the age of 91. 

"When it came to pot smoking, I could never match Willie—literally no one can—but I did experience the benefits," Bobbie wrote in the 2020 book she and Willie co-authored Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band. In the book, Willie writes: "Without my sister I'd never be where I am today. I've always needed her.....I would have run into ruin if it hadn't been for my first and best friend, Bobbie. If I was the sky, sister Bobbie was the earth. She grounded me. Two years older, she also protected me." 

The depression-baby siblings' parents broke up and left them with their grandparents when Bobbie was three years old and Willie only six months. After "Daddy" Nelson died when the kids were six and eight, Bobbie would take Willie and hide in the fields whenever the authorities came around, threatening to take them from their grandmother and separate them into foster homes. "Mama" Nelson traded eggs from her chickens for groceries, taught music, grew vegetables, and picked cotton and corn to support the children. The kids worked in the fields with her, and she taught them how to braid her hair. 

Was The Band's "The Weight" Written For a Drug-Dealing Woman?

Cathy Smith, Inspiration for "The Weight"? 

From a woman's perspective, the dreary, draggy song has always bugged me. Who was this Annie (or Fanny) who was so weak she needed some burden taken off of her? 

Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And you put the load right on me 

Written by The Band member Robbie Robertson, "The Weight" has cryptic and poetic lyrics with many possible interpretations, and is admittedly about characters known to members of the group. "The story told in the song is about the guilt of relationships, not being able to give what’s being asked of you," Robertson has said. "In going through these catacombs of experience. you’re trying to do what’s right, but it seems that with all the places you have to go, it’s just not possible. In the song, all this is ‘the load'." 

Route from Toronto to Nazareth, PA

When I learned that the title of the song was "The Weight," I wondered if it was also about a drug deal. "Take a load" could refer to picking up a certain weight of pot or some drug from a woman named Fanny, who apparently didn't get paid for the risk she took in the venture, since the lyrics say, "take a load for free." 

The song takes biblical overtones to many with its first lines:

I pulled into Nazareth, I was feelin' about half past dead / I just need some place where I can lay my head....

However, Robertson says this was actually written about Nazareth, Pennsylvania, the home of Martin guitars. The town is a day's drive from the band's home base (Toronto, Canada) on the route to either Philadelphia or New York City. If the band was running weed to supplement their income, as so many musicians have, Nazareth might have been a stop on their trade route. In those days, it's likely they would have been carrying Mexican marijuana from the States across the border to Canada. 

"I loved The Band's music and thought 'The Weight' was a testament to the importance of underground drug dealing during that time," says NORML founder Keith Stroup. 

I picked up my bag, I went lookin' for a place to hide...

Jack Kerouac at 100, By His Women

This Saturday, March 12 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jack Kerouac, the author whose landmark novels like On the Road defined a generation called “beat.” 

On Thursday, March 10 at 6 PM PST, City Light Bookstore in San Francisco will hold a virtual celebration of Kerouac and his work titled, Still Outside: Kerouac@100. [Watch a YouTube video of the event. Updates from it in brackets.]

Speaking at the event about Desolation Angels—the book that most delves into Kerouac's drug experiences during his travels to Mexico and Tangiers—will be Beat Generation scholar Ann Charters. A professor of American Literature at the University of Connecticut, Charters was the only biographer who interviewed Kerouac about the circumstances in which he wrote his books. She edited his posthumous poetry collection Scattered Poems.  

[Charters ended her presentation with a quote from Marcel Proust, one of Kerouac's favorite authors: “In reality every reader, while she is reading, is the reader of her own self. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to the reader to permit her to discern what, without the book, she would perhaps never have seen in herself. The reader's recognition of her own self of what the book says is the proof of its truth.” She added, "And that's Kerouac."] 

Speaking on "How On the Road started a cultural revolution and the price Jack Kerouac paid for it," will be author Joyce Johnson, who dated the author during the time he wrote Desolation Angels and is fictionalized in the book as the character Alice Newman. 

Johnson met Kerouac at a time when, "just breaking away from home was an enormous struggle for a young woman," she told Fresh Air's Terry Gross in a 1983 interview upon publication of her book Minor Characters. "We were women who were attracted to men who exemplified freedom, but who would put women into more traditional roles; we weren't their comrades," she said. 

South Dakota Lawmaker Calls Drug User a "Whore" on House Floor

South Dakota Rep. Steve Haugaard, formerly a Speaker of the House, called a woman who he said used marijuana and methamphetamine a "wrung-out whore" during a debate about a medical cannabis bill on the state house floor on Thursday.

According to account by the West Central Tribune, Haugaard rose to debate Senate Bill 26, to redefine the definition of "practitioner" under the state's medical cannabis bill, when he asked lawmakers if he could "tell a story": 

He talked about a family welfare check Sioux Falls police performed on a young mother Haugaard's family knows. Haugaard said the woman started "self-medicating" with marijuana because of her depression.

Then, he shared another example of a family he represented as an attorney whose daughter he knew as a "little teenage girl," and has now, in her 30s, fallen into drug addiction. Haugaard said the teenager used marijuana and then turned to methamphetamine. "She was a beautiful girl in her teens and a sweet kid," said Haugaard. "She is now kind of a wrung-out whore because she has prostituted herself for drugs."

WNBA Player Brittney Griner Detained in Russia, Reportedly for Hashish Vape Cartridge

Sign a Change.org petition for Griner’s release addressed to various US officials.

 

UPDATE 12/8/22: President Biden, at a press conference with VP Kamala Harris and Griner's wife Cherelle standing behind him, announced that Brittney has been freed and has landed in the United Arab Emirates, as she makes her way home from detention in Russia. Griner was exchanged for Viktor Bout, 55, an arms dealer accused of supplying Al Qaeda, the Taliban and rebels in Rwanda. 

 

Biden and Cherelle both spoke about the need to free US citizen Paul Whelan and others unjustly detained in foreign countries. Speaking about other families who are not yet united, Biden urged US citizens to check the State Dept. for travel advisories. 

 

(One Canada's advisories says, "Previous use of cannabis, or any substance prohibited by U.S. federal laws, could mean that you are denied entry to the U.S. If you attempt to enter the U.S. for reasons related to the cannabis industry, you may be deemed inadmissible." It seems Griner will skirt this clause, which may not be applicable to US citizens.)

 

UPDATE 10/22 - A court date of October 25 has been set for Griner's appeal.

 

8/15/22: Griner's attorneys have appealed her conviction, and there's official talk of swapping her and other Russian prisoners for arms dealer Victor Bout, and idea has been criticized by former president and coup-inciter Donald Drumpf. I guess the US doesn't want the competition; war toys are some of our biggest exports.

8/4/22: Griner was found guilty and received a 9-year sentence. Her defense team called the verdict “absolutely unreasonable” and said “we will certainly file an appeal.” The team — Maria Blagovolina, a partner at Rybalkin Gortsunyan Dyakin, and Alexander Boykov, of Moscow Legal Center — said the court had “completely ignored all the evidence of the defense, and most importantly, the guilty plea.”  

UPDATES: 7/1/2022 - Griner's trial has begun, with her wearing a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt to her first court appearance. She is accused of transporting only 2/3 of a gram of hash oil in two vape pens into the country, a "crime" that could bring a sentence of up to 10 years. 

More and more, people are calling this a political hostage situation. On TV's "The View," Joy Behar wondered aloud if the Putin regime might have planted the pot on Griner. 

US Marine Trevor Reed was brought home from Russia in April after a prisoner exchange. In June, former US diplomat / teacher Marc Fogel was sentenced to 14 years in a Russian penal colony after airport workers found half an ounce of marijuana in his luggage.

 

Griner's hearing will continue on July 7, and several rounds of hearings are expected before she gets to present her case. 

6/15/2022 - Brittney Griner's detention in Russia extended through at least July 2, Russian state news reports

 

5/13/22 - Businessman Viktor Bout may be swapped for basketball player Brittney Griner, source says

 

60 Minutes mentioned Griner's plight in a segment about WNBA player (and Megan Rapinoe fiancée) Sue Bird, during a discussion about why WNBA players go to Russia. 

A Russian court extended Brittney Griner's detention until May 19, state media says

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee demands Russia release Brittney Griner

 

Former Pentagon official: Russia could use WNBA star Brittney Griner as 'high-profile hostage'
Griner is not the first U.S. citizen that Russia has held in custody as tensions between the two nations have escalated. Last August, a U.S. teacher [Marc Fogel] was arrested with marijuana and cannabis at a Moscow airport and accused of smuggling drugs into the country on a large scale.

The Atlantic: Brittney Griner’s Plight Says More About America Than Russia

Russia wouldn’t be a tantalizing option for America’s best women’s basketball players if they could earn more at home and be treated with the same professional respect as NBA players. It is damning that teams in oppressive countries such as Russia and China—another opportune marketplace for women’s basketball players—place a higher value on players such as Griner than the teams in her own country do.

'It's the most audacious hostage taking by a state imaginable,' says former captive

"They're making her out to sound like a drug kingpin. I think that it is unlikely that Ms. Griner will get a fair trial," concludes Jonathan Franks, the campaign spokesman for Trevor Reed, who has been detained in Russia since August 2019. "I think that every time reporters repeat that narrative, we're doing some of the dirty work of the hostage takers for them. My attitude is Brittney Griner is innocent of any crimes until the world sees otherwise," adds American Iranian journalist Jason Rezaian, who was detained in an Iranian prison for 544 days in 2014.

The Nation: Brittney Griner is a Political Prisoner
Imagine if Kevin Durant [a marijuana fan] were being held in a Russian prison, waiting months for a trial, in the middle of a war. Every day we would have an update, even if it were just to say his name and ensure that he was still in people’s minds....Right now, there are only bad choices. But the starting point has to be the recognition that this is no longer about marijuana possession, if it ever was. There needs to be a recognition that Griner is in fact a political prisoner.

BBC: Brittney Griner: How can a US basketball star just vanish? 

Ms Griner, a nine-year veteran of the league - is the "best of the best", said Melissa Isaacson, a sportswriter and professor at Northwestern University in the US state of Illinois. "She's every bit the Tom Brady of her sport," Ms Isaacson said. "You could argue very accurately that she is one of the best athletes in the world." Roughly half of WNBA players compete overseas in the off-season. For most, it's a way to augment their domestic income: WNBA players receive roughly five times more in Russia than they do in the US. "If she were Steph Curry or LeBron James, she wouldn't be over there at all because she'd be making enough money," said Tamryn Spruill, a sports journalist who is writing a book on the WNBA and Ms Griner's contributions to the league.

According to the New York Times, officials of the Russian Federal Customs Service announced today that they have detained a US basketball player after allegedly finding vape cartridges that contained hashish oil in her luggage at the Sheremetyevo airport near Moscow. 

The player has been identified as Brittney Griner, a seven-time W.N.B.A. All-Star center for the Phoenix Mercury who has played for the Russian team UMMC Ekaterinburg for several years. Griner, 31, won Olympic gold medals with the U.S. women’s national basketball team in 2016 and 2021. 

Goodbye to Our Big, Beautiful Blonde: Sally Kellerman

Sally Kellerman, best known as "Hot Lips" Houlihan in the 1970 movie M*A*S*H, stood at 5' 10" tall and weighed a hefty 175 pounds with a "butch" haircut when she took a bit part in 1957's B-movie "Reform School Girls."

A graduate of Hollywood High who grew up in Long Beach and the San Fernando Valley, Kellerman took acting classes with the likes of Jack Nicholson, Robert Towne, Carol Eastman, and Shirley Knight before landing acting roles on TV shows, including an appearance in the "Star Trek" pilot, and in "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" (playing a girl who is captured by the musky smell of Maynard's hair tonic).

Struggling with her weight, Kellerman used diet pills starting at the age of 18 (dexamyl spansules, which "made me feel like Felix the Cat on the inside. They burnt out my nervous system and eventually became a popular street drug.") Of her iconic shower scene in M*A*S*H, she wrote, "For someone like me, who had ridden the roller-coaster of pregnant women's urine, dexamyl capsules, apple diets, and  fruit fasts to always run back to cookies, brownies, and candy—the mainstays of my diet—getting naked was not at the top of any 'to-do' list." She recalled of her time working on the ensemble-style film with director and Very Important Pothead Robert Altman that, "After shooting, we'd smoke a little grass and some would have a drink. We'd all go to the dailies together." 

She appeared in other Altman films (Brewster McCloud, Ready to Wear), as well as playing Jodie Foster's mother in Little Foxes and Rodney Dangerfield's love interest in Back to School. She was superb in the 1972 movie version of Neil Simon's The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, and was acclaimed for her performance in the PBS Great Performances production of Big Blonde, based on a poignant Dorothy Parker short story.

 

Betty Sembler and Straight Inc.

Betty Sembler

Watching the documentary White Savior: Racism in The American Church tonight with its segment on the American Indian Boarding schools that separated native children from their families and stripped them of their heritage, I thought of Straight Inc., the discredited program that sought to reprogram marijuana-using teens in the US from 1976 to 1994. 

Straight Inc. co-founder Betty Sembler died this week, and her otherwise glowing obituaries briefly mention that the program "was shut down amid allegations of abuse and excessive force." 

Sembler, along with her husband Mel, was a high-profile antidrug crusader for decades. According to news accounts, Mel was a lifelong Democrat until he objected to Jimmy Carter's pro-legalization stance after one of the Semblers' sons began smoking marijuana. The Semblers made millions developing shopping centers in Florida, and fundraised so well for Republicans that George H.W. Bush named Mel ambassador to Australia, and George W. Bush made him ambassador to Italy. 

Reportedly, Betty was among those who suggested Nancy Reagan take on drugs as her pet cause, and Reagan gave her stamp of approval to Straight Inc., as did former NIDA head Robert DuPont. The program operated 43 centers in 18 states across the US over its 19-year run. Dubbed "warehouses" by participants, the ACLU called them "concentration camps for throwaway teens."