Celebrating famous female cannabis connoisseurs throughout herstory to the present day. All contents copyrighted. "Bright Leaf" artwork by Jean Hanamoto http://www.camomoto.com
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Why the US is More Gosford Park Than Downton Abbey
But that system was prettied up mightily for TV. The 2001 movie from which the series is based, Gosford Park—also written by Julian Fellowes and, unlike the sanitized TV version, directed by VIP Robert Altman—paints quite a different picture of the aristocracy.
An upstairs/downstairs story set in the same time period as Downton, Gosford Park also stars Maggie Smith as the blunt and bossy matriarch and also has three daughters--two beautiful, one not--plus a shy, stringy haired and obsequious servant intrigued by a nasty blue-eyed valet; a slim and stately blonde servant who knows her place; and a comely, earnest daughter with a brunette bob involved in an inappropriate clandestine affair. Even the sets are nearly identical, down to the candlesticks.
In Gosford, the Lord is rather a monster who so mistreats his help that he gets his comeuppance at their hands, doubly so. The Lady is not, in any sense of the word, a lady. Smith's character enjoys dishing with the servants, and uses them for spies. The help truly dislikes their overlords, knowing full well that they are unfairly treated workers.
Gosford Park won nearly every Best Director award worldwide and Fellowes picked up an Oscar for Best Screenplay. Co-producer was Bob Balaban, who plays the American movie director in the film, and also did a cute guest spot as a medical marijuana doctor on HBO's Entourage. The TV version of Gosford, with aristocrats who care about their servants, is a PBS fundraising monster praised for its authenticity of set and costume design.
Americans have a warped view that all of us will be rich someday: boys want to be Michael Douglas in Wall Street and girls still believe in Prince Charming (hell, they're all dressing like slutty princesses now). Even during the Great Depression, the favorite board game was Monopoly, in which the winner takes all, to hell with the rest of the players. As I learned on Netflix recently, Monopoly was first invented by Lizzie Phillips in 1923 as The Landlord's Game, to illustrate the downside of concentrating land in private monopolies. If you doubt the inequities of our system, you can also see the 2006 documentary The One Percent on Netflix.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Remembering Janis
I just came across a Dick Cavett episode filmed only two months before her brightly burning candle burned out. Janis gives an astonishing performance of "Half Moon," showing she's in full control of her tight-as-a-drum band, the aptly named Full Tilt Boogie.
Afterwards, she stands up for pot to fellow guest Gloria Swanson, talking about repression in the 1920s when Swanson was making movies. "Back then you couldn't drink because they didn't like it. Now you can't smoke grass," Janis said. "Back then you couldn't be a flapper because they didn't like it, and now you can't play rock and roll ...It seems to me that people who went through all that prohibition and flapper times should realize that young people are always crazy, and to leave us alone." The audience applauded their agreement.
Just afterwards, Cavett promises his audience a lift from the following Pepsi commercial. Nowadays Beyoncé, whose daughter with Jay-Z was honored with a medical marijuana strain named for her days after she was born, has taken criticism for pushing Pepsi at the upcoming Superbowl. Too bad she can't promote something actually uplifting.
I saw this iconic picture of Janis at a Mill Valley record store once years ago, in front of which was planted a little girl demanding to know who she was.
At the 2005 Grammy Awards Joplin was honored by VIPs Joss Stone (who looked the part) and Melissa Etheridge (who sounded it). There will never be anyone, anywhere, like Janis, but her torch has been passed to a new generation.
UPDATE 2017: Hot Auction Going For Janis Joplin Pic With Michelle Williams
Monday, January 14, 2013
Did Richard Nixon Finger Louis Armstrong's Wife Lucille for a Pot Bust?
Louis and Lucille |
Lucille Armstrong in 1983 |
The San Francisco hotel where Louis wrote about gage. |
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
How Paulette Goddard Turned on Fred Astaire?
I just learned that Petula Clark "outed" herself and co-star Fred Astaire as smoking marijuana during the filming of 1968's Finian's Rainbow. "There was a lot of Flower Power going on," she told the BBC.
The movie, directed by pot-puffing Francis Ford Coppola, is set on an agricultural cooperative where a character played by Al Freeman Jr. attempts to develop a pre-mentholated tobacco. The plot has co-star Don Francks trying hard to get a hand-rolled cigarette to produce smoke, and ends with the whole cast blissfully doused in smoke.
The Canadian-born Franks—a jazz singer, poet and Native American—used to perform a song called Smokin’ Reefers. "A smoker of weed in his younger years, he was a fan of the plant. He gave up drinking when he was 21, using the First Nations term 'firewater' when referring to alcohol." Source.
Hermes Pan with Ann Miller in "Kiss Me Kate" |
I can't find any other reference to Astaire and marijuana, but the choreographer most closely associated with him, Hermes Pan, is described in a biography as offering both tobacco and marijuana cigarettes to guests at a 1949 dinner party at his home in Coldwater Canyon.
Astaire called Pan his "ideas man" and the two began their collaboration on "The Carioca" number for "Flying Down to Rio" (1933) (probably the most humorous dance duet ever). Pan also suggested Astaire dance with a hat rack in "Royal Wedding," and advised him how to do it. He continued to collaborate with Astaire right up until his last musical picture, Finian's Rainbow.
Pan's career began with an appearance as a chorus boy in the Marx Brothers' 1928 Broadway production of "Animal Crackers." At that time, marijuana was still legal, and Chico Marx told an interviewer in 1959 that Groucho took his name from the "Grouch bag" they'd wear around their necks in their Vaudeville days, adding, "In this bag we would keep our pennies, some marbles, a couple of pieces of candy, a little marijuana, whatever we could get...because, you know, we were studying to be musicians."
Pan was also close to VIP Diego Rivera, who may have turned him on to pot in Mexico, if Errol Flynn's account of his own experience with Rivera serves. Pan and Rivera met at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in 1940, introduced by actress Paulette Goddard, who appeared in Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" and "Modern Times" as well as "The Women."
In 1943, Pan visited Rivera at his home in San Angel near Mexico City where Rivera asked Pan to pose for him dancing, so that he could work out techniques for depicting motion in his paintings. He also painted a portrait of Pan.
Flynn wrote in his autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways that he visited Rivera in 1935, introduced by another actress, Dolores Del Rio (who also appeared in "Flying Down to Rio"). Rivera offered Flynn marijuana, which he smoked, and afterwards he could hear the paintings singing.
"Pan found life in Hollywood even more superficial and insignificant after his return from San Angel," wrote his biographer John Franceschina. Maybe the two-week posing process included puffing something mind expanding and if so, he shared some with his friend Fred.
Detail from Rivera's "Pan American Unity" mural seems to depict a love triangle with Frida Kahlo, himself and Goddard before the Tree of Life. |
Thursday, December 27, 2012
2012 TOKEY AWARDS
Tokin Woman is proud to bestow
the following “Tokey” Awards for 2012,
in recognition of the achievement,
courage and compassion of the awardees.
First Pot Peace Candidate Had Reason in His Family
Teresa and George McGovern after he won the Massachusetts Democratic Primary |
My first political act, at the age of 13, was to campaign for McGovern. When Nixon won by a landslide, I was so disheartened about the cynicism of the neighbors I'd canvassed and the country I lived in that I didn't get involved in politics again until I found out about hemp in 1991.
Now I see that the laws against marijuana had a damaging effect on a member of McGovern's family.
According to Wikipedia:
In July 1968, George McGovern's daughter Teresa was arrested in Rapid City, SD on marijuana possession charges. Based on a recently enacted strict state drugs law, Terry now faced a minimum five-year prison sentence if found guilty. At the time McGovern was in the running for the Democratic nomination for president.
McGovern denounced as "police brutality" the Chicago police tactics against demonstrators at the convention in August and ended up supporting Hubert Humphrey's nomination that year. Again, Wikipedia:
McGovern returned to his Senate reelection race. While South Dakota voters sympathized with McGovern over his daughter's arrest, he initially suffered a substantial drop in popularity over the events in Chicago.
McGovern won the Democratic nomination four years later in 1972, when he famously became tagged with the label "amnesty, abortion and acid," supposedly reflecting his positions. McGovern favored the decriminalization of marijuana (but didn't say the same for LSD). Ever since, McGovernism has come to mean the embracing of progressive social policies that make liberals easy targets for conservatives. See SF Gate's Obituary.
Teresa was 19 when her pot bust happened. The effect it may have had on her life is unknown. For one thing, it might have sent her to more damaging substances, like alcohol.
In December 1994, at the age of 45, Teresa fell into a snowbank while heavily intoxicated with alcohol, and died of hypothermia.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Christmas Classics and Cannabis
Tonight, TCM aired Hope's 1951 movie "The Lemon Drop Kid" in which he and Marilyn Maxwell sing "Silver Bells," a song written for the film. Based on a Damon Runyan story, the movie has Hope rounding up New York's petty crooks to dress as Santas and collect money for a phony charity.
While singing the song about 56 minutes into the movie, Hope is clowning around just after it's established a policeman can't shut him down because he's licensed. He stops to sniff a big meerschaum pipe smoked by a street corner Santa, after which he acts goofy, whistling and flapping his wings. (The tune is actually introduced by William Frawley as "Gloomy," who sings, "chunk it in/chunk it in/or Santy will give you a Mickey.")
Hope joked about pot on radio broadcasts in the 1940s and while entertaining troops in Vietnam in the 1970s. "I hear you guys are interested in gardening here," he quipped. "Our security officer said a lot of you guys are growing your own grass." Poignantly, he added that "instead of taking it away from the soldiers, we ought to give it to the negotiators in Paris." The jokes were censored from Hope's 1970 Christmas special (so much for Peace on Earth).
Hope, who admitted to trying pot in a Rolling Stone interview in 1980, gave a nod to his "Road" movie co-star Bing Crosby at the end of The Lemon Drop Kid. Crosby, whose recording of "White Christmas" is the best-selling single ever, was also a VIP.
Another beloved Christmas film, "The Man Who Came to Dinner" (1942), edits out a scene from the 1939 play by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman where absinthe is mentioned.
In the film, Sheldon Whiteside, played by Monty Woolley, is the unwanted guest of staid Ohio industrialist Ernest Stanley over the Christmas holidays.
The original play has this scene:
JOHN (manservant): And Sarah has something for you, Mr. Whiteside. Made it special.
WHITESIDE: She has? Where is she? My Souffle Queen!
SARAH (cook): (Proudly entering with a tray on which reposes her latest delicacy) Here I am, Mr. Whiteside.
WHITESIDE: She walks in beauty like the night, and in those deft hands there is the art of Michelangelo. Let me taste the new creation. (...swallows at a gulp one of Sarah's not so little cakes. An ecstatic expression comes over his face) Poetry! Sheer poetry!
SARAH: (beaming) I put a touch of absinthe in the dough. Do you like it?
WHITESIDE: (rapturously) Ambrosia!
Interestingly, the word "counterfeiting" in the play's line, "If that's for the Stanleys, tell them they've been arrested for counterfeiting," was changed to "dealing dope" in the film. Mr. Stanley brags of building ball bearings for the war effort, which is what the real Ohio industrialist Henry Timken did. Timken's son Harold H. ("Henry") also grew hemp in Imperial Valley, California in 1917.
Woolley also appeared in the Christmas movie "The Bishop's Wife" (1947), in which he plays a professor
who describes to the Bishop (David Niven) the never-emptying bottle of sherry that the angel (Cary Grant) bestows upon
him thusly: "It warms. It stimulates, It inspires. But no matter how much you
drink, it never inebritates....it's something you can't explain with all
your Ecclesiastical knowledge."
In his latest brilliant column on marijuana, VIP Andrew Sullivan skewers David Frum and NIDA for their backwards words and policies. He writes,
"The whole point of marijuana use is to disrupt settled ways of thinking and feeling, to offer a respite, like alcohol, from the deadliness of doing. But for reasons we don't quite yet understand, marijuana, like other essentially harmless drugs in moderation, can prompt imaginative breakthroughs, creative serendipity, deeper personal understanding, and greater social empathy and connection. People need these things and have always sought refuge in them, especially at this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere."
True, even at the movies.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
High Lily, High Lily
My favorite line from Lily Tomlin's masterful album "Modern Scream" comes from this mock question:
Interviewer: "Lily, is it true you have a drug problem?"
Lily: "Yes, it's so hard to get good grass these days."
As one of the two "tokin' women" honoring George Carlin when he posthumously won the Mark Twain Prize, she opened with, "I flatter myself to think that George and I somehow drank from the same comedy fountain. Or should I say 'inhaled'? Or perhaps I shouldn't."
Lily inhaled on screen with Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda in the 1980 movie "9 to 5," at a pot party that bonded the characters in a deliciously wicked plot to improve their workplace conditions. (It's true: pot leads to communism.) Tomlin's "Tasteful Lady" is a great send-up of the kind of "Mothers Against Everything" that would put the clampdown on cannabis.
Asked if she's an advocate for marijuana legalization, Tomlin replied, "Yes, yes. Of course."
She said she doesn't have a doctor's recommendation, and asked, "Can you get me one?...I have to rely on the kindness of strangers. I don't use everyday. I'm not that fresh and hip." To the question, does she have any favorite of cannabis strains, Tomlin replied, "I wish I was that sophisticated."
At 72, Tomlin is back on TV as the mother of Reba McEntire in the upcoming ABC sitcom Malibu. She'll appear onstage on January 19, 2013 at the Sunset Cultural Center in Carmel, CA.
In May, Tomlin and longtime writing/life partner Jane Wagner were honored by Sen. Barbara Boxer. Maybe the two should have a toke, and a talk. UPDATE: Maybe they did.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Tales of Two Tokin' Women: Fiona Apple and Lady Gaga
Fiona Apple was caught on Wednesday with small amounts of marijuana and hashish in Sierra Blanca, Texas, making her the first woman to be nabbed in the same border town where Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg and Armie Hammer were also arrested by the US Border Patrol. (Hammer was reportedly carrying baked goods from his wife's bakedery.)
Apple was arrested and jailed, and spoke about her experience at her Houston concert. It's about time someone spoke up about what a violating experience being jailed is. Apple's arrest is potentially much more serious than the others who got their wrists slapped, since hash possession reportedly can bring a 3-10 year sentence in Texas, even though it's just concentrated cannabis.
There is possibly no other artist who digs as deep as Apple does, with undeniable talent and honesty. She is back on the musical scene after a 7-year hiatis, with her presciently titled new album The Idler Wheel Is Wiser than the Driver of the Screw, And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do. We wish all the best to the extraordinary machine that she is. She'll be in New Orleans on Monday night, and touring the East Coast thereafter.
Apple's arrest blunted my enthusiasm about the news that Lady Gaga lit up a joint onstage at her concert in Amsterdam, declaring weed "wondrous." She was quoted as telling The Sun newspaper: "I want you to know it has totally changed my life and I’ve really cut down on drinking."
One commenter wrote: "Good now she won't end up like Amy." (Gaga has famously gained 25 pounds, possibly due to the munchees and healthier habits.) Another wrote: "Good on you Lady Gaga. Makes me want to reach for one. Unfortunately it is totally acceptable for celeb's to indulge in whatever their desire, but not for regular folks like us. LoL." They're right, and I'm not laughing about it.
Tickets for Gaga's Born this Way Ball on Feb. 22 at Madison Square Garden go on sale on Sept. 28. Since she has 29 million Twitter followers, we think they're likely to sell out.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Where Are the Top Female Marijuana Users?
Maya Angelou |
Only five women make the list. Sarah Palin comes in at number 14, and poet Maya Angelou is number 21. Angelina Jolie is 24th on the list, even though she said she doesn't like pot's effects. Jennifer Aniston shows up at number 38 and Whoopi Goldberg at 44. Lady Gaga missed the cut, coming in at #52.
The maleness of the list could be a reflection of MPP's membership, or of their own selection of the 200 nominees. High Times's readership is almost exclusively young males, and groups like NORML have traditionally been male-heavy (although the NORML Women's Alliance is working to change that).
NORML board member Greta Gaines made some waves recently when she published an Alternet.org article titled "Why Are No Women Celebrity Stoners Willing to Come Out of the Greenhouse." Gaines got a few things wrong, dissing Melissa Etheridge as a mere medical marijuana advocate, and failing to recognize that women like Aniston, Sarah Silverman, Cameron Diaz, Kirsten Dunst and others have spoken publicly about their marijuana use. But if the MPP list is a reflection of public perception, her point is one that needs to be made.
Most are aware that women had a role in bringing about alcohol prohibition, but many don't know that they also helped bring it down. Pauline Morton Sabin was one important player who was highlighted in Ken Burns's PBS series "Prohibition." A panel at the national NORML conference on Saturday, October 6 will explore women's role in ending America's prohibitions. An NWA Luncheon will follow. Read more and register.
See a round-up of prominent female cannabis connoisseurs, now and then.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Ayn Rand on Drugs
Ayn Rand |
That's too bad, because Rand opposed drug prohibition, although she called taking drugs "suicide" and said marijuana "destroys the mind." At least, so says a web search.
According to the book Ayn Rand Answers by Robert Mayhew (Penguin, 2005) as quoted by OnTheIssues.org, Rand said,
"I do not approve of any government controls over consumption, so all restrictions on drugs should be removed (except, of course, on the sale to minors). The government has no right to tell an adult what to do with his own health and life. That places a much greater moral responsibility on the individual; but adults should be free to kill themselves in any way they want.
"I would fight for your legal right to use marijuana; I would fight you to the death that you morally should not do it, because it destroys the mind. What the government should do is protect citizens from the criminal consequences of those who take drugs. But drugs would be much cheaper if it weren't for government."
Rand can be heard on tape saying, "I think drugs should be sold openly because it is an individual's right to commit suicide if he wants to...If drugs were sold legally, that would put that whole underworld and all the drug addicts as pushers out of business."
The Rand Watch blog explored the theme for a 2010 story, "Was Ayn Rand a Drug Addict?, which says,
"In addition to her indisputable addiction to nicotine (she was a chain smoker) there’s no question that Ayn Rand was a habitual consumer of amphetamines starting in 1942, when she was prescribed Benzedrine for weight loss (a common medical practice in that era) and discovered that it gave her the energy to put in the long hours needed to finish the first of her two major novels, The Fountainhead. Rand liked the boost that 'speed' gave her, and from that time until at least 1972 – a period of 30 years – she continued to use amphetamines, moving on to Dexedrine and Dexamyl."
Judging from the way they spun their lies in convention speech after speech, Republicans will have no trouble spinning away Ryan's admiration for that godless speed freak Ayn Rand with her wild ideas on everything but the economic policies that favor his tax bracket.
Me and Morello (2019) |
Burns appeared on The Colbert Report on August 29 and called Rand's writings "the gateway drug" for the New Right. Burns said the last thing Rand wrote was a denunciation of Ronald Reagan. Too bad Ayn's not around to give her opinion on Ryan. Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, a band who Ryan says he admires, has written an eloquent response in Rolling Stone. Wait until everyone from AC/DC to Led Zepplin have their say.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Phyllis Diller: She Inspired Comics and Cannabis
The world is mourning Phyllis Diller, who broke the gender barrier in stand-up comedy as a 37-year-old housewife and inspired new generations of female comics everywhere.
It's doubtful that Diller smoked pot. Born in 1917, she was from what George Will called "the Falstaff generation." She joked that for her health she drank a lot of water "and a lot of gin." In her New York Times obituary she is quoted about doing stand-up, "I don't want to sound like a doper, but it's a high."
Googling her name plus "marijuana" gives a surprising result: a strain of cannabis named "Phyllis Diller" is for sale at the Medical Marijuana Relief Clinic in Sherman Oaks. A sativa strain, I'm guessing it got its name because it resembles the shaggy hairstyle famously sported by Diller.
The torch has been passed to a new generation. Diller was remembered by her friend and protegée Joan Rivers on CBS This Morning. Rivers smoked marijuana on her reality show earlier this year and said back in the day she smoked it with Betty White, George Carlin, Woody Allen and Bill Cosby.
Another "domestic goddess" comedienne who admired Diller is Roseanne Barr. Barr was roasted on Comedy Central on Saturday, and joked that Obama could pry her medical marijuana out of her cold, dead hands. She had the last laugh as she ended her bit by singing, very well, lines from the National Anthem. Barr says in her book Roseannarchy that giving up the "herb of the goddess" in favor of pharmaceutical drugs contributed to her famously blowing the song. She is the Peace and Freedom party nominee for President in 2012, on a ticket with VP nominee Cindy Sheehan.
Among those "Tweeting" their admiration for Diller yesterday were VIPs Barbra Streisand, Whoopi Goldberg. and Bill Maher.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Another "High" Profile Parental Rights Case
Ross and his Gold. |
This case is something special, however. Rebagliati won the first-ever Olympic gold medal in snowboarding, in 1998, and nearly lost his medal after testing positive for marijuana just afterwards. He kept his prize after claiming he'd been a victim of secondhand smoke at a send-off party in Whistler.
Now Rebagliati's ex-wife is claiming she has found marijuana residue on their son's hair, alleging he was also exposed to second-hand smoke during visits to his father. Whether or not this test is valid, or if it would even harm the boy if it's true, is unknown. They've just found out that baby shampoo can give a positive test for marijuana, for one thing.
Ross was charming and well spoken on Jay Leno's show after the Games. He told Jay his reaction to hearing he tested positive was, "Holy smokes!" He admitted to smoking until April of 1997, but said he quit to follow the Olympic rules. Leno joked, "So unlike Bill Clinton, who said he smoked but didn't inhale, you inhaled but didn't smoke."
Ross laughed about the jokes he was made the butt of (Jay called him Ross Nickel Bag-Liati), but you've got to wonder what it's been like for him, after all he's accomplished, to have the stigma of being a "pothead" following him around. According to Wikipedia, he won a libel suit against producers of a TV series that defamed him. He couldn't even attend Mitt Romney's Salt Lake City Olympic Games due to a law denying entry into the so-called "land of the free" to any known drug user. (Amy Winehouse was denied entry for a US music festival for the same reason.)
Rebagliati now admits to smoking pot for aching joints, but not daily. It's not inconceivable that his joints would now ache. Many current and former athletes have presented themselves to California doctors for pain relief, and one author even thinks it could save the NFL.
As more parents speak out and stand up for their rights, the tide is turning towards reason, rather than breaking up families over a little marijuana use. The New York Times recently ran an article titled Pot for Parenting written by a San Francisco art gallery owner who finds himself a better father after smoking his medical marijuana. And a California court recently ruled that a father's medical marijuana use was not sufficient reason to infringe on his parental rights.
Let's all stand up for parents everywhere who use marijuana responsibly.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Lisa Marie Pothead?
The 44-year-old mother of four has been living in England, but came back to LA when she heard that T-Bone Burnett wanted to produce her. She has reportedly left the church of Scientology; perhaps she's found a new religion?
Friday, May 4, 2012
HBO to Air R&R Hall of Fame Awards - Saturday at 9
Inductees include VIPs Laura Nyro (inducted by Bette Midler), Donovan, and the Beastie Boys, read more.
(Sadly, Adam Yauch of The BB's just died)
Details from HBO
Read a report on the R&R Hall of Fame Awards