Sweet Simplicity

'Bewarijuana'

(Click for trippy bigness)

I am not much of a pot smoker. I took a ride on the proud mary once upon a trip, but it makes me tired anymore. Worse yet, it makes me look very tired. In other words, I made a decision years ago that looking like I was 'high on something' was not the look I was going for and I put the peace pipe in mothballs. Despite my leap from the love train, I support anybody's decision to use responsibly.... unless it leads to sinister things....

In my 20's, I was turned on to the spoken word recordings of Jello Biafra. I was familiar with his wonderfully biting lyrics as long-time front man for the Bay Area punk band, the Dead Kennedys. His fifth speaking album, I Blow Minds For A Living, was released in 1991 and contained, among other things, an extensive history of marijuana and its road from useful vegetation to illegal narcotic. It was here that I first heard that, sometime in the 1930s, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, it was said that marijuana was known to cause people to 'listen to jazz'. True or not, it is hilarious. The idea has stuck with me and, 23 years later, I put the idea down as art.

The image shown is my computer rendition. Of note is the fact that this falls into the category of art which turned out exactly as I had envisioned it- the rarest of things, I am afraid. It will appear as an aged painting (acrylic on plywood, 2' x 2') in the very near future. At that time I will post a photo of the finished product. That is, unless I am too baked to remember.