Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas Hallucinates with Mandrax in "Maria"

Angelina Jolie is winning acclaim and award nominations for her portrayal of O.G. opera diva Maria Callas in the movie Maria, which follows Callas through the last seven days of her life, with fuzzy flashbacks to her earlier days. It is the third and final film in a trilogy depicting iconic 20th-century women from Chilean director Pablo Larrain, following Jackie (2016) starring Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy and Spencer (2021) with Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana. 

In Maria, Callas is shown taking Mandrax, a combination of the hypnotic sedative drug methaqualone (Quaaludes) and the anti-histamine/sedative diphenhydramine (Benadryl). Popular in Europe in the 70s, commercial production of Mandrax was halted in the mid-1980s due to its widespread abuse and addictiveness.  

An imaginary young filmmaker whose name is Mandrax appears to interview Callas, setting up a conversation between her and the drug, or her hallucination while taking it. By this strange conceit Maria's life is revisited as she works on recovering her largely lost etherial singing voice just before dying. 

To prepare for her role, Jolie spent seven months training to sing opera. Mostly she lip-synched to Callas's divine recordings, but she did that well. The film premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival where Jolie received a "rapturous" eight-minute standing ovation towards the end of the screening.

Jolie has said she doesn't enjoy marijuana, but that by the age of 20, she'd used "just about every drug possible," including heroin. Episodes of depression and two suicide attempts, plus a nervous breakdown at age 24 lead to her being institutionalized for 72 hours at the UCLA Medical Center psychiatric ward. Her breakthrough role, for which she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, was as a wild child institutionalized with Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted. She won Golden Globe and SAG awards for playing model Gia Carangi, a heroin addict who died of AIDS in 1986. "Playing the madness and insanity, hearing voices, there's my wheelhouse," Jolie said of her approach to the role as Callas. 

Presidential Medal of Freedom Winner George Soros (and Me)

George Soros

Well, now I can say I've met, and worked for, a Presidential Medal of Freedom winner. 

Among those bestowed last week with this "highest" civilian honor in the land was George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist whose Open Society Foundation funds human rights projects internationally, with $32 billion of his personal wealth. Soros also funded the Drug Policy Alliance, for which I worked in San Francisco around the turn of the millennium. 

I met George only once, briefly, and said something stupid like, "Thank you for my job." By then I'd been a volunteer activist for over a decade, and working at what was then called the Lindesmith Center was my first real paying gig in the field. I'd received a few Soros dollars while petitioning for Prop. 215, California's pioneering medical marijuana law, but ended up turning in most of my signatures as a volunteer to bolster those numbers in the funders' eyes.

"I'll See You in My [Pipe] Dreams"

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

Rhea Perlman and Blythe Danner in I'll See You in My Dreams

In I'll See You in My Dreams (2015), Blythe Danner plays Carol, a retired schoolteacher whose husband Bill, a lawyer, died in a plane crash 20 years before the film begins. Carol lives a tranquil existence in a comfortable home in Southern California. Her usual activities are watching TV while drinking wine, and playing golf or bridge with her gal pals who live in a nearby retirement home. 

The film begins with Carol putting her dog down, leaving a hole in her life. A rat soon appears in her house, leading to an encounter with her young pool guy Lloyd (Martin Starr), whom she enlists to scout out her unwelcome visitor. The mismatched (age-wise) couple bond over a shared love of music, and he rekindles her interest in singing, taking her out to a karaoke bar where she sings "Cry Me a River" while her young friend looks on adoringly. Meanwhile, another Bill, played by Sam Elliott, appears to sweep her off her feet with fancy wine-filled dinners in a restaurant or on his boat. 

June Squibb takes a toke from a vaporizer

All this seems to cause a re-examination of life by Carol. When her bridge buddy Sally (Rhea Perlman) asks if she wants a refill on her chardonnay, Carol instead asks, "Do you have any more of that medical marijuana?" Sally brings out a vaporizer and the gals indulge, lead by the game-for-anything Georgina (June Squibb), who announces she knows how to use the device, takes a big hit, and remarks, "Oh man, oh jeez, that's great." The brash-yet-timid Rona (Mary Kay Place, who smoked a joint with William Hurt in The Big Chill) also joins in the fun, boogying down to "Groovin" while Carol has a stare-down with an owl-shaped cookie jar in the kitchen, and Sally acts as the down-to-earth shaman/guide. The foursome heads out to the local minimart for a junk food run, and while heading home with a shopping cart, encounter a cute young cop (Reid Scott) who lets them go despite their strange behavior.

WATCH: Jason Carter Mentions His Grandfather Jimmy's Support for Marijuana Decriminalization at His State Funeral

Emerging as a breakout star at President Jimmy Carter's state funeral is his grandson Jason Carter, whose eulogy has been praised as moving as well as humorous. The Irish Star said Carter "blew funeral-goers away" with his "powerful" speech, after which commentators urged him to run for President or some office. 

Joking that his down-to-earth grandparents had a rack by their sink to dry rinsed Ziploc bags, Carter said in all his 49 years, he never perceived a difference between his grandfather's public face and his private one. He continued,

As you heard from the other speakers, his political life and his presidency, for me, was not just ahead of its time. It was prophetic. 

He had the courage and strength to stick to his principles even when they were politically unpopular. As governor of Georgia half a century ago, he preached an end to racial discrimination and an end to mass incarceration. As president in the 1970s, as you’ve heard, he protected more land than any other president in history. Fifty years ago he was a climate warrior who pushed for a world where we conserved energy, limited emissions and traded our reliance on fossil fuels for expanded renewable sources. 

By the way, he cut the deficit, wanted to decriminalize marijuana, deregulated so many industries that he gave us cheap flights and, as you heard, craft beer. Basically all of those years ago, he was the first millennial. And he could make great playlists, as we’ve heard as well…. 

Peter Yarrow, "Puff, The Magic Dragon" and Marijuana?

 

Peter Yarrow, a member of the popular 1960s activist folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has just died, leading me to take another look at him and his song, "Puff, The Magic Dragon." 

Yarrow co-wrote what became a universally loved children's song with his Cornell University classmate Lenny Lipton in 1959. Despite calling their dragon "Puff" and setting the tune in what sounds like the marijuana-producing region of Honalei, Hawaii, both authors repeatedly denied the song was inspired by marijuana until the day they died. 

In the video above, recorded January 18, 2016 at Paste Studios in NYC, Yarrow strums the chords to "Puff" singing along with an intro claiming that rumors the song contains marijuana references are "spurious." At the time he and Lipton wrote the song at Cornell, he says/sings, "There were no drugs at all. Weed had not come from the West Coast to be with us there. The worst thing we did was go on a panty raid, or have beer in the dorms, or a girl," he added, laughing. 

Ginsberg at a LeMar protest in 1963.

I wondered if this was true. Yarrow had that Beatnik look with his sunglasses and close-trimmed beard, and The Beats had access to grass in the 1950s in New York. Allen Ginsberg wrote in his 1966 “Bringdown” manifesto: "I must begin by explaining something that I have already said in public for many years: that I occasionally use marijuana in preference to alcohol, and have for several decades." Jack Kerouac's “On the Road” was written in 1957, and I think by then Lester Young had turned Kerouac onto “tea.” 

I checked with pot historian Michael Aldrich, who wrote the first-ever PhD dissertation on marijuana and co-founded the pro-legalization group LeMar along with Ginsberg in New York in the early 70s. "I believe it’s possible that there was little or no pot available at Cornell in mid-60s," Aldrich said, adding that when he was at SUNY Buffalo from 1966-1970 "it was difficult to get raw marijuana."

He adds, however, "Hash from New York was often available including Nepalese temple balls. The first issue of Marijuana Review (a magazine that published availability and pricing of cannabis at the time) doesn’t list Cornell, but Buffalo reportedly had “icepack and gold, $24 an ounce. Influx of several keys expected soon @ $125. Some Lebanese hash available, $15 per gram.”

In "Thelma," June Squibb is "America's New Action Hero" at Age 94

 

Based on the experiences of writer/director Josh Margolin's 104-year-old grandmother, and marking June Squibb's first leading film role of her 70+ year career, "Thelma" has made Squibb "America's new action hero at the age of 94," according to Jimmy Kimmel. 

A longtime stage actress, cruise ship performer, and supporting actress in films, Squibb won an Oscar nomination for the 2013 film "Nebraska" at the age of 84. She played Lena Dunham's grandmother on "Girls" and voiced Gramsy in "Little Ellen," based on the childhood of Ellen DeGeneres. 

The 2015 movie "I’ll See You in My Dreams" featured a pot party followed by a munchie run with gal pals played by Squibb, Blythe Danner, Rhea Perlman and Mary Kay Place. The gals are playing cards at their retirement community and not thrilled about drinking more beer or wine, when Danner asks, "Actually, do you still have any of that medical marijuana?" Perlman pulls out a vaporizer and Squibb comments, "It's like pre-heating an oven," then takes a big hit and enthuses, "Oh man, oh jeez, that's great." Giggling ensues. 

Nikki Glaser Lights Up The Golden Globes

Shimmering in a silver gown and an equally sparkling wit, comedienne Nikki Glaser opened her first-ever solo-female hosting of The Golden Globes with a drug joke. 

"Welcome to the Golden Globes," she greeted. "Ozempic's biggest night." She followed by noting what a powerful room she was playing to, saying, "You can do anything, except tell people how to vote." That zinger landed, as did the rest of her strong and confident set.

Doing her crowd work mistressfully, Glaser pointed out the "legendary" Harrison Ford, saying she spoke with him backstage. "I asked him if he would rather work with Zendaya or Ariana, and he said Indica....so we're going to find him some." Ford—who has never outed himself as a pot smoker despite Carrie Fisher doing so—scowled at this, but Glenn Close sitting next to him smiled beatifically. (Close puffed pot with her pals in "The Big Chill.")