For the last two nights, National Geographic has aired two documentaries called Explorer. Last night’s focused on Marijuana, and tonight’s on LSD. It sounded like a fun idea to watch.
The one on Marijuana started out with footage of people getting busted, and some of the usual statistics. It then got into showing some cool growing setups. I enjoyed seeing Marc Emery. I remembered dealing with him on Ron Paul Radio, where he had one of the most popular shows. As the narrator said, he loved to talk, you could learn more listening to him for an hour than in a semester of some lame class. He gave a good method for cleaning a bong: mix a few cents of kosher salt and a few cents of isopropol (rubbing) alcohol. Thanks, Marc. Unfortunately, he has gone to prison since the making of the documentary. I can say that I talked to him voice several times, and he sure didn’t sound like a dangerous person. It certainly seems absurd that someone has gotten five years in jail for selling seeds that our forefathers grew.
While discussing medical marijuana, they said something which bothered me. They talked about the federal vs. states issue, and said that “a loophole” allowed the states to get around federal regulations. A loophole? As in the 10th Amendment? “Yeah, we’d like to just keep pot illegal, but we have this loophole called the Constitution.” They kept saying that a way didn’t seem to exist to end the problems around pot, but clearly a way does: Legalize it!
I learned that the famed Emerald Triangle consists of Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity counties in California. They showed some footage of Oaksterdam, a revitalized section of Oakland with a cannabis theme. The vaporizer sounded cool. It reminded me of the cop’s electric bong in Cheech and Chong’s Nice Dreams. With all these happy thoughts about California floating around, it seemed very funny that they showed a commercial with happy people singing happily. “Make your happy happen at sandiego dot org. No doubt they know what that sounds like! They may have intended the slogan, but did they intend the ad’s placement? Probably not. The documentary and the ad sure made California seem like a happy place… if only I didn’t know native Californians and the news to set me straight. Still, Oaksterdam seems pretty cool. I loved Amsterdam, I know that much.
The cannabis documentary had a neutral to very slightly positive tone, but the documentary about LSD had a decidedly darker tone in the narration and in the music. Even when airing the positive points of view, the ominous music lingered in the background like a chemical impurity. They showed some cool footage, including the film of the British military dosing soldiers, one of whom climbed a tree to feed the birds. They showed some therapists who administer LSD to patients for creative blocks, cluster headaches, and terminal illness. One scientist demonstrated a non-hallucinogenic form of LSD for treating cluster headaches. They also showed scientists who administered LSD to humans and rats to find out more about schizophrenia. They showed someone in the throws of an experience with a weirdly echoing voice over the music. “Just lie back, and go with the experience.”
“Sperm.” The transition to a commercial about a National Geographic documentary about conception seemed very abrupt. Clearly, the engineer on duty had never taken LSD. The California ad played again, this time right after showing a psychedelic therapist living deep in the woods of California, his identity protected to avoid prosecution. I guess whether you want medical Marijuana or medical psychedelics, California has it all.
While discussing how LSD works in the brain, they said something I found most illuminating. When the brain perceives novelty, for instance if you sit in a quiet room and suddenly a bottle smashes, it will fire signals in a specific area which gets your attention. LSD amplifies these signals. Of course, hearing novelty mentioned in the context of psychedelics made me immediately think of Terence McKenna and his novelty theory. McKenna believed that a novel event at the end of time draws us towards itself, the past an echo of eternity. He placed this eschatological event at the same point as the Mayans, December 21st, 2012. He saw time as a nested fractal, like folds within folds, defined by resonance points of increasing novelty.
Speaking of time, we set our clocks forward an hour for Daylight Saving Time. I still feel annoyed at George Bush for moving the times to make a confusing thing even more confusing. Every year I have to rant about it as it effects me in some way. This time, it made me get an hour less sleep, threw off my eating schedule, and almost caused me to miss today’s documentary about LSD. It occurred to me while listening to the descriptions of LSD’s effects that switching to daylight saving time has some of the same effects, including disorientation, alteration of eating and sleeping patterns, and a loss of the sense of time. Let’s outlaw it! Think of all the horrible accidents this could potentially prevent! Think of the children!
I don’t watch much television, so this made a fun double occasion. One doesn’t normally see such documentaries, at least I don’t think so, though wouldn’t exactly know. I felt glad to hear some positive points of view. I put up with the negative points, especially during the second documentary. I know where I stand.
There’s light. There’s lots of light. I can feel the wall. Hey, who has better vacation ideas than Triple-A? According to the chaotic male Elvin wizard who sold me this travel brochure, no one. What kind of room has no doors, windows, or walls? Every mirror has an answer, but who asks the questions? It made me become a vegetarian. It turned my friend Jack into a beanstalk. An urban legend tells of a police officer who apprehended a guy carrying a vial of pure LSD, capable of making thousands of doses. The cop didn’t recognize it and dipped his finger into it and tasted it. Tasting nothing, he did this a few times, then forgot about it, until about forty-five minutes later, when he turned into a chicken. “Buck Buck! I’m a Chicken!” he screamed, ran off into the forest, and human eyes have never seen him since. They say on cold winter nights, you can still him screaming. “BBBBBBBBbbbbbuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!” And
that’s why in Brazil, people speak Portuguese to this day. These paper towels suck, man. They don’t even fold properly.
