SATURDAY, October 18, 2008

Russ had to get up extra early on Saturday to attend some breakfast function thing.  Which meant I got to sleep in.  Excellent.

More very interesting panels, including one from the people who founded Oaksterdam.  Oaksterdam is like a pseudo-suburb in Oakland where they have medical marijuana dispensaries and also a university that teaches people basically how to grow pot, as well as legalities for growing pot.  Very cool.  I was surprised at the sheer amount of students or young people who were involved in the cannabis movement.  Not just for personal enjoyment, but for everyone.

The last panel of the day was Pot Culture, and had “legendary” Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek as part of the panel, which basically meant that no one else talked except Ray, and when Ray talked, it was more about Jim Morrison than anything else.  I kinda feel bad for him (Ray, not Jim).  He was a part of one of the most influential bands in the 60s and yet all he can talk about is Jim, cause everyone wants to hear about Jim.  He puts up with it very well.

The panels had been going over in time for a while at this point, and so the hotel staff was telling us to wrap it up because they had the 50 year high school anniversary of Berkeley High at 6pm.  So Ray got to talk about Jim for about a half an hour before we had to cut him off and tear everything down, which was disappointing because I wanted to hear from the other panelists too!

This meant that Russ and I had to move our stuff to the second floor of the lobby (where they were selling NORML merch) in roughly twenty minutes.  We did it, but it sucked.

Saturday night was the big NORML fundraiser at the Oasis Nightclub in Oakland.  There were “magic “ buses shuttling people down there every hour or so, starting at seven.  As we waited for the seven pm bus, Cindy and Marcia made yet another appearance.  I think it was somewhere around this point, probably before, that I was mentally arguing whether I should continue on my sober path and remain a passive bystander, or if I should just fuck it and smoke and enjoy the weekend.  Part of my reason behind this argument were, of course, these two ladies, who continually reminded me that my refusal to enjoy myself was hampering my social skills tremendously.  I may be a nerd at heart but I’m also an actor, and actors, if anything else, know how to have a good time.

Well, the seven o’clock shuttle came and filled very quickly, so we decided to head back to the hotel lounge and have a drink and wait for the eight o’clock bus.  I had a beer and realized that this, and the glass of white wine I had on Thursday, were the first alcoholic drinks I’ve had since moving to Portland.  In Boise we’d go out every weekend and get some drinks, whether it be a tame Friday night at 10^th St or a hammered karaoke night Saturday at Quinn’s.  Now, I’m not saying I’m any better or worse now than I was then (I don’t think I can accurately say anything about that for at least six months), but it was kind of interesting to have a beer after not having one for a month and a half.  Coors Light just isn’t that tasty, is all.

It occurred to me as we were sitting there and drinking that at some point I was going to get on a shuttle that would be full, FULL of pot smoke.  I figured at that point it would be impossible to not smoke because I would be inhaling second hand smoke the whole ride.  But still, I was determined to save my foreseeable future, which involved jobs and money and … stuff.  So I continued to withhold.

Russ must’ve known my dilemma because he ran off to an ATM to get me some money to get drinks.  I felt a little better knowing that I could at least grease my squeaky social wheels with something legal.  A couple of drinks would certainly help me calm down, too.

The eight o’clock shuttle arrived and we all got on board, and soon the joints were being rolled and passed around.  I kept getting one and passing it along.  The room got more and more hazy, and people were talking and enjoying themselves and I was watching them enjoy themselves while at the same time wondering when the hell I was going to enjoy myself and suddenly there was a joint in my hand and I said, “You know what?  Fuck it,” and started smoking.

I wish I could be less dramatic about things, but again, I’m an actor, and we’re all about drama.

The Oasis was very fun after that.  They had lots of finger food and the drinks were especially stiff.  I kept near Russ and the Jersey girls for a while but then found myself wandering around, checking out the place.  It was a pretty neat setup.  The concert room was not very large but had no ceiling, just beams where panes of glass would’ve been overhead.  People were recording from up there, it was great.  And then there was an outside space nestled up against the buildings where tents were set up for people to smoke and sit and talk.  I found Madeline somewhere at this time and made an ass of myself as I talked about how stupid I felt for not joining in the celebration all weekend long.  Or something like that.  I don’t remember exactly other than I know I was rambling and sounded silly.

When I came back into the concert room is when the Extra Action Marching Band arrived.  They were faaantastic.  They’re a marching band with a distinctly vaudevillian flair, with lots of drums and brass, and three girls who just danced and looked hot, and one guy who was twirling a flag … it was great.  They didn’t play on stage, but rather in front of the stage and around everyone.  I think I made an ass of myself later on when they were done telling them how awesome they were.

After them was Los Marijuanos, which are a Mexican hip hop group who takes songs that we all know and makes them into rap songs about weed.  They were entertaining, though not my favorite of the night.  But they are big fans of my brother Russ and wanted him to introduce them, so he did, and after they were done I told them I was Russ’s younger brother and Ponyboy said, “Any friend of Russ is a friend of mine,” which was nice, even though I’m Russ’ brother, not his friend.  I mean, we’re friends, but we’re brothers, you know?  Oh you know what I mean.

The shuttle was supposed to leave at midnight sharp, so after Los Marijuanos I decided to high tail it out of there.  I had wondered if Russ was hanging around or what, but I couldn’t find him, so I assumed he was on the bus.  The last thing I wanted to do was get stranded in Oakland California, drunk and high (I think that made me crunk), with ten bucks on me.  Talk about embarrassing.  So I got on the bus and Russ and Cindy and Marcia were there and all was good.  We took the shuttle back to the hotel and promptly fell asleep.

SUNDAY, October 19, 2008

I woke up and knew that Russ wasn’t in the room.  And I knew that he had gone to the lobby and moved all of the sound equipment back into the ballroom and had probably done it himself.  And while I was a little miffed that he didn’t wake me up to help him, thereby having suitable leverage to use it against me, I couldn’t deny that the extra hour or two of sleep was very, very nice.

When I arrived in the ballroom the seminar from NORML’s legal committee was starting.  I thought, great, I’ll just sit down and film stuff like always.  I don’t even have to load anything in!

Not true, my friends.  There is always something to be done.

I received a piece of paper from Dr. Frank Lucido, with the instructions to make 200 copies.  Simple.  I walked to the front desk and asked them to make copies.

 The lady said, “The copier is broken.”

My first thought was, “Buuuulllshit.”  But I went back and told Russ that the copier was down.  He told me to tell Frank.  Bah, I didn’t want to do that.  Frank was sitting at his spot on the panel now!  I went up to Frank and told him, and he said, “This is a three hour conference.  They should be able to fix the copier by then.”

At this point I was thinking that Mr. Lucido was kind of a big wig jerk sorta guy.  Mr. I Don’t Have to Make Copies Myself Well in Advance of the Seminar kinda guy.  But I was in no place to argue, so I went back to the front desk, talked to a different lady, laid out my situation.  They said the copier was down.  I said, “Can you fix it within three hours?”  She said no, only special people could fix the copier.  This is code for “We’re not going to fix the copier for you.  Ever.”  So I asked ever so politely if they would direct me to the nearest Kinkos.  They gave me directions and I took the Jeep into Berkeley, officially visiting a part of California in the daytime.  My verdict?  It was alright.

Nothing of interest happened while I made copies.  They cost .11 cents a copy in California.  That’s a lot of money for a piece of paper, I say.  I got a little lost but only because I drove past the Kinkos.  So the Verizon Navigator lady (her name is Michelle) said, “You are at your destination,” and I was like, “No I’m not Michelle!  Don’t you lie to me like that!” only to find out that she was right all along.  I’ll never doubt you again, Michelle.

I delivered the copies and Frank said thank you and the rest of the seminar went off flawlessly.  Afterwards Frank thanked me again for getting him copies, and I realized that he’s not a big wig jerk sorta guy at all, which disappointed me a little only because no one was a big wig jerk sorta guy, so there was no one that I could root against.  Not one silly selfish asshole among the bunch.  It would’ve made for a terrible TV show, that’s all I’m saying.

After the seminar we broke for lunch and the hotel staff generously let us know that they had double booked the ballroom, and thus had to cut our room size in half with those stupid separators they use.  So the next seminar from Oaksterdam was in 1/4^th of the ballroom, with chairs set up almost around the panel, and the projector projecting on the wall.  Goo d work hotel, you have no officially devolved us into an amateur conference.  Thanks a lot.

Oaksterdam’s seminar was on “cannabusiness,” which is one of the cleverest portmanteau’s I’ve ever seen.  It was interesting but by this time I was working of little sleep and was getting tired.  After their seminar we broke everything down and loaded it into the Jeep.  I was under the impression that we were going to start driving, but Russ had one more fundraising party to go to, and so we did that.

The fundraiser was approximately in the middle of the hills.  Even Michelle could not navigate the streets we had to drive through.  It was in Canyon, California, which is near Oakland, I guess.  For a while we were on the freeway and then suddenly we were in some seriously suburban windy hillside streets, and then past that was a long stretch of road that looked downright dangerous to drive on.  Thank god for the Jeep’s four-wheel drive.

After a few minutes of scary driving we reached a house which I thought was the place but was actually a post office or something.  We found a place to park and a man directed us up a dark hill to the actual party location.  Once we got there we wandered around in a daze for a bit.  There was a big white dome tent thing where people were hanging out, and one of those inflatable slides.  It was pretty bad ass.  After a while we met up with Cindy and Marcia yet again (big pimpin’, spendin cheese…), and I pretty much latched on to them and Russ for the remainder of our time there, because what the hell else was I going to do?

At one point I was sitting by a fire when some young cute woman approached me and started talking to me about the fire, which turned into general conversation.  I thought, “Finally!  I don’t feel like a total loser now!  Look at me, talking to this woman and being all cool and stuff.”

And then we went to get more beers and she found her boyfriend.  C’EST LA VIE!

We were being beckoned down to the dome to hear some Rastafarian rapper.  Soulmatic, I think his name was.  The dome was cool but it was getting cold out, and Russ and I had a long drive to make.   So we hung out for a bit and then decided to take off.  I was the DD, which meant Russ was off his rocker and I had one beer, so he was trying to figure out how to go upstairs to say goodbye to the Jersey girls.  I was about to go myself when I turned right and saw them walking to me.  They were eager to leave as well.  They, however, took a limo here, and that limo wasn’t scheduled to leave until midnight.  So they wanted to come with us.  Well, we literally only had room for the two of us in that stuffed-to-the-brim Jeep.  I thought we could just wait or find the limo driver or even find someone else who was leaving and ask them for a ride.  Russ, however, wanted to make room in the Jeep.  So he wandered off to do that.

Which left me with the two Jersey girls.  No problems there.  Cindy was sitting on the curb, and Marcia was leaning against me, probably for warmth or to stop the spinning.  I’ll be honest – I never feel like I’m “big pimping”.  I know this comes as a shock to you, but it’s true.  Most of the time I feel like I’m in people’s way, and when it comes to women it’s more like, Not only am I in your way, but I actively repulse you.  Like I said
, socially awkward.  Plus they were drunk and I wasn’t, so it wasn’t anything fancy, it was more like babysitting (haha, sorry ladies).  

After a while I got worried that Russ fell into a ditch or something, so I excused myself to go look for him, and found him in some grand rearranging scheme that I knew wouldn’t work but decided to go along with just, I dunno, for shits and giggles.  So we spent a good thirty minutes trying to rearrange the Jeep to allow one more seat for the Jersey girls.  When we thought that we might make it work out (it wouldn’t), I looked over and saw the limo leaving.  “Uh, Russ,” I said, “I think the limo’s leaving.”

We both went over to see if the Jersey girls had left on the limo.  Russ couldn’t find out, but I just asked the guy who was standing there if they had left.  He said yes.  So all of our rearranging efforts were for naught, and we didn’t even get to say goodbye to Cindy and Marcia.

We put everything back in place in the Jeep, and I asked Michelle to get us out of these hills, and she did, and soon we were on the road to Portland.

I did manage to get my first taste of In‘n’Out Burger on the way back though.  And while we were ordering food at the drive thru a homeless man walked up behind the speaker and started shouting at me.  I felt that that was all the California I needed.

The ride back became a tag team effort to sleep and drive.  I would drive, Russ would sleep.  Russ would drive, I would sleep.  Russ and I would sleep in a rest area, etc.  We got back to Portland around 11am on Monday, got home, brought our bags in, and promptly passed out.  Russ had to get up to speak at the Artists for Obama rally at the Wonder Ballroom later that night, so he needed a bit more rest than I did.

I think I’ll close my travelogue with this: at the Artists for Obama rally, Russ told his wife all about the Jersey girls and the “big pimpin” comments he was getting, assuring her that it was very far from the truth.  Then he mentioned Marcia, saying that he was trying to hook her and me up.  I said something to the effect of, “WHAA?” to which Russ said, “She’s only 24.  Did you know she was 24?”

I turned into a very tiny sheep and said, “no.”

The moral of the story being, have fun.  Have fun first.  Enjoy the life you’ve got, don’t try to alter it or force it to other people’s expectations.  Smoke pot.  Get drunk.  Flirt.  Don’t be like me and assume that you have to act a certain way to get a certain thing that you don’t even know you want in the first place. In a few decades you are going to die, and when you look back on your life, you’re either going to say, “I had a lot of fun!” or you’re going to say, “I didn’t do shit.”  Which one would you prefer?

And Marcia, Marcia, Marcia … if you ever read this, then let me just say for the record that you are gorgeous and I should’ve hung out with you more.  Curses!

Maybe I’ll see you next year.

And that was my time at NORML Con.

FRIDAY, October 17, 2008

Getting up early sucks.  Russ and I both had to get up very early to move all of the sound equipment from the fourth floor of the convention center to the first floor ballroom, located near the lobby.  This meant moving stuff all the way across the hotel.  If you think this is fun, then you are delusional.  We managed to set our stuff up in a relatively nice space in the room, right in front and to the left, where the panel’s desk and podium were located.  And the rest of my day was spent filming panels!

I won’t go into detail on each panel and what they talked about, but I will say that they were all incredibly informative.  Part of the reason, I think, why so many people in our country are still afraid of marijuana legalization is that they don’t get to see these kind of panel presentations.  They just aren’t educated about it, in other words.  And I don’t mean just the medical qualities or even the amount of arrests over the course of a year.  Those are important facts, of course, but I think the average person would be more interested in seeing the cohesion of intellect and wisdom that occurs at these presentations.  These people aren’t here to just get high.  They’re here to educate, and to help you and each other.  I’ve never heard so many eloquent people in one room.  A lot of attorney and lawyers and medical practitioners and people with salaries.  Not kids smoking pot in the alley.  And the “young people” who were at the conference weren’t idiots.  These kids were fucking smart.  And prepared.  And ready to respond to people, not with bland talking points or prepared speeches, but with real, honest answers both from their heart and from their head.  They truly are activists, in the root meaning of the word – they are active.

I wouldn’t consider myself a marijuana activist.  I’m more of an advocate, if anything.  But I wasn’t even that before I went to NORML Con.  I was just a guy helping with sound equipment.

Anyway, blah blah blah NORML Con changed my life, yada yada.  I don’t want this to be one of those type of blogs.  I’d rather it be about me, and how socially awkward I am.

Friday night was the NORML Awards banquet thing.  I don’t know anymore about it because I didn’t go.  “Didn’t go?” you say.  “What are you, some kind of loser?”  Well, yes, Blog Readers, I am.  I don’t know what my deal was.  I had some more anxiety or something.  I went back to the hotel, took a nap, ditzed around on the hotel computers again, then watched Ellen or something.  When Russ came to the room to get ready for the awards he was with Cindy and Marcia and I was thinking, “Big Pimpin’, spendin’ cheese…”  They hung out for a bit and then went off to the awards and I didn’t even think of going with them.  Honest to god I have no idea what my problem is sometimes.  I think part of it had to do with my lack of any money whatsoever.  It’s not very fun to go places where you can buy drinks and not have money to buy drinks.

So I was being a sad sack of shit in my room while everyone else hung out and partied.  It reminds me a lot of my high school days…

I should mention that we had another roommate, Ryan, who was starting a Fayetteville NORML chapter, and was pushing a “Sensible Fayetteville” measure that would make marijuana the lowest priority for police officers.  He was pretty cool though he talked a bit too fast.  That night he and Russ came back to the room together.  Ryan looked pretty hammered.  We only had two beds in the room and Ryan insisted on sleeping on the floor.  As we all went to bed Russ and I started talking about something, I don’t remember what, and then as we drifted off to sleep Ryan started making these horrible noises.  I immediately thought he was overdosing or something, and had to think to myself, “People don’t overdose on pot, idiot.”  In the end I think Ryan was just talking in his sleep.  Russ tried to calm him down and he went to sleep and then an hour later Ryan made the noises again, but this time instead of a weird guttural groan it was more … orgasmic.  That’s the only way I can explain it.  Russ didn’t hear it but I did.  And it was very funny.

THURSDAY, October 16, 2008

Russ started driving but I took over halfway, and I drove us into the Bay Area (which is sometimes known as the Yay! Area, which melts my little heart).  I would like to thank Verizon Wireless and their VZN Navigator for making what could’ve been a travesty on the freeway into an easy drive to the Doubletree Hotel and Convention Center on the marina.  A wonderful spot for a hotel; boats lined up at the dock, the fresh smell of sea air.  It looked like a lovely place to sleep for an entire day.

It was around eight o’clock at this point, and Russ and I were eager to find our room so that we could sleep.  This is where our Spinal Tap adventures began.  Let me just say for the record that the Belvilles have a history of weird Spinal Tap moments regarding travel.  The Colorado family reunion springs to mind immediately, but that’s another story.

Russ went in the hotel to get us checked in … and found that check in wasn’t until 4pm.  Four o’clock?  What hotel checks people in at four o’clock?!  This Doubletree must have a history of businessmen flying in around that time or something, but absolutely no record of two siblings hauling ass in a packed Jeep for nearly twelve hours.  We were exhausted, and we wanted sleep, and the Doubletree denied us of this.  So what did we do?

We slept in the Jeep.  For about two hours, before that became uncomfortable.  Then I’m not sure what we did.  I think I started searching for my contact solution and case in my bag, which was nestled in a larger, weatherproof bag which sat on the roof rack of the Jeep.  This took more effort than I would like to acknowledge, but my contacts had been stuck to my face for over twenty-four hours at this point, and while I’m not a hypochondriac by any means, I was still petrified that my eyeballs would grow around my contacts.  I read stories about this happening, and the last thing I wanted was my eyes to suck in my contacts.  Who knows what would happen next?

Just my luck, though – right as I took my contacts out, Russ found Keith Stroup and Allen St. Pierre.  Keith Stroup founded NORML back in 1970 and is now on their board of directors (and is also now their legal council if I remember correctly).  Allen St. Pierre is the Executive Director of NORML.  So within a couple of hours of my arrival in Berkeley, I meet two of the most important people in NORML – and I couldn’t see them because I took my contacts out.  Nothing like shaking hands with a squint in your eye.

Russ told them about our hotel trouble, and Keith invited us up to his suite to shower.  So within three hours of my arrival in Berkeley, I had met the founder of NORML and took a shower in his suite.  I guess Shakespeare was right: some people do have greatness thrust upon them.

(I put my contacts back in, by the way.)

One point I think ought to make now is that everyone at NORML was extremely cool.  This, I think, should not come as a surprise considering everyone was smoking pot all weekend long.  Keith and Allen were two of the nicest people I’ve met who also happened to be Very Important People, and every other VIP (I hate to use that term) that I met was kind and considerate and just really really cool.

After our showers and some brief chit-chat, Russ and I descended to the lounge to get some bar food.  Bar food at this hotel is much better than most bar food.  I had a burger (ordered well done – a mistake on my part, but no one ever asks me how I want my burger done!) and it was there that I met another “VIP” of NORML — Steve Dillon, the Chair of the Board of Directors and an attorney from Indianapolis.  At the time he was wearing a t-shirt and khaki shorts, and went to the bar and ordered a beer, and honestly, my first thought of him was, “Oh boy, here comes the guy who’s gonna get plastered at noon and tell us fishing stories.”  For a while we chatted and I thought Russ was sort of indifferent to this man as well, so I was doing my best to not maintain eye contact or respond.  At one point, though, Steve told a really amazing story about a case he worked on involving a paintball game and a hunt for a possibly poached deer in a duffel bag.  His storytelling was fantastic, and he was extremely charming and fun to listen to and watch.  By the end of his story I was thoroughly impressed, and I thought, “You know, that guy is okay in my book.”

Only to find out later that he was the Chair of the Board of Directors of NORML.  C’est la vie!

It was at this point that I also met Cindy and Marcia (names changed to be a good guy).  Cindy is an attorney?  I think? from New Jersey, and Marcia was her paralegal (I guess that would make sense that Cindy is an attorney … I know nothing about legal stuff).  These two would make regular appearances throughout the weekend, and would ultimately remind me of my terrible lack of skills with the ladies.

Thursday night was the big NORML reception, so Russ and I set up speakers and stuff in the reception room, which was on the fourth floor of some convention building on the other side of the hotel.  Thanks a lot, Doubletree!  This would be one of many hotel screwups, which will be outlined later.  Anyway, I’m getting things a little mixed up.  We got the reception set up, then went to get lunch, and then Russ got our hotel keys but we went to Steve’s room to smoke.  Well, they went to smoke, I went because where the hell else was I going to go?  My fear of smoking pot for job-related reasons would prove to be a majorly debilitating part in the Fun Factor of my trip.

So they all smoked and I tried to make friends without participating in the group activity, which is awfully difficult.  I mean, everyone was very cool towards people who didn’t smoke pot, and this is just generally true of pot smokers.  You’ll never see a pothead try to force you to smoke.  It’s just not cool.  Now alcoholics might get a bit antsy with you, because an alcoholic is not an alcoholic if he’s drinking with other people (he thinks, at least), but potheads know that it’s just not cool to force things on other people (probably because they’ve had prohibition forced on them…).  On the other hand, not participating in something as social as pot smoking just feels weird.  I told Russ later that I felt like a documentarian, taking some kind of false objective angle with the whole thing – sitting back, watching it from afar.  And that, for the record, is something I hate doing.  Just hate it.  I hate being outside of a group.  I’d rather be inside, with people, doing the fun things that they are doing.

This, as I have already said, will become a Big Deal for the rest of the weekend.

The reception had finger foods and an Elvis pinball machine.  So it was kind of awesome.  They also had Pac-Man and Frogger, though some jerk set up his l
aptop on top of the Frogger machine because, I don’t know, maybe he wanted people to not enjoy Frogger.  Which is impossible.

I knew nobody except Russ and Madeline (the Executive Director of Oregon NORML) and her husband (whose name escapes me because everyone always calls him Smoke Dogg [I’m assuming there’s an extra G there]).  I spent most of my time playing pinball.  I’m terrible at pinball, to the point where I can’t see how anyone would be good at it.  It’s just a ball rolling around!  There’s no end boss, there’s no next level.  It’s all the same thing.  Booooring.

It was around this point that a profound irony began to unravel within my chest.  I was getting an anxiety attack.  People generally know me as an amiable and friendly person who likes to have fun.  This is true, but it’s mainly true around people that I know very well.  If I’m around groups of people that I don’t know at all, I tend to be quieter and listen more than usual.  This was what was happening for most of the day on Thursday.  But at some point, I started to get anxious.  I bring this up as an ironic because I was surrounded by people who had an excellent remedy for anxiety, readily available and quick and effective, and I couldn’t use it.  If I did, I would lose any job lead I had.  I would be back to square one, and might even have to wait a couple of weeks to get the THC out of my blood system so that I could look for work again.

This is coming from a guy who smokes maybe once every six months, remind you.  Not habitual (I use that term loosely), not every day.  My risk of having amounts of THC in my system for longer than a week is greatly reduced by the fact that I don’t have any in my system now.  But it’s a terrible economy.  The job market sucks.  For me to smoke would ruin my chances of finding ANY sort of job at this point.  And I need any sort of job.  I can’t be dependent on my brother or my parents or anyone anymore.  I’m an adult, for Chrissakes.

And so I didn’t smoke.  All because of a corporate system that funnels me into a pre-packaged box, complete with drug checks and lousy pay.

Instead I walked outside, spent a few minutes at the hotel computers, and basically was not social for the entire night.  At some point I went back to my room, just in time to miss introducing myself to the Florida NORML chapter (out of the University of Florida?  I forget), which were all kids around my age (probably younger) and who seemed pretty cool.  The end of the night saw me and my brother playing our respective instruments in a hotel room with about a dozen people in it, them smoking and enjoying themselves, and me wondering if I was going to continue to alienate myself for the rest of the weekend.

INTRODUCTION

Being the younger brother of a marijuana activist is tough work.  You wouldn’t think so, considering the nature (no pun intended) of the work, but it’s true.  Most people think of potheads as disillusioned youth listening to Pink Floyd on vinyl, lazily floating though life with no sense of direction or accomplishment.  All they do is wake up at 4pm, smoke weed until 4am, and repeat.  For my brother, this is far from the truth.  Russ smokes pot to relax, as he spends ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week working, whether it be his podcast, or his weekend radio show, or a random interview he has to get up at six am to do, or his software company that he created.  Not to mention all of the reading he has to do to stay on top of politics and culture.  The good news is that he gets to spend the day in pajamas to do most of his work.  The bad news is that he is stuck at a computer all day, and some of the night, doing that work.  And while some men might, at the end of the day, plop down in front of the TV with a frosty beer, Russ would much rather smoke a bowl.  The connotations of each activity are so incredibly different to most people.  Even I, who am liberal minded and pretty laid back, still have to shake that image of the lazy Dazed and Confused stoner, who giggles at everything they say and stares at you with bloodshot sleepy eyes.  Alcohol, meanwhile, has two images for me: alcoholics in wifebeaters and fun party time drink.  Seriously.  Both images are consequences of the media, and I have a hard time shaking these stereotypes from my head.

Well, nothing could rattle my social perceptions more than NORML Con.  NORML stands for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.  Their goal is to educate the populace on the reality of cannabis, that it is a harmless plant that gets people high and can, in some instances, actually help people, such as Alzheimer patients, where it has been proven that marijuana is the ONLY known substance that helps slow down the onslaught of that terrible disease.  It soothes chronic pain, it relieves nausea and other afflictions from chemotherapy, and it has helped thousands of HIV and AIDS patients.  Most people think it’s silly that there are still laws that prohibit the sale and manufacture of weed, and yet there are still people out there who are terrified of the stuff.  I used to be, long ago.  But not anymore.

Now, I’m not a pothead by any stretch of the imagination.  I smoke maybe once or twice every six months.  It feels good when I do it but I don’t need it medically and it usually just makes me really sleepy.  It doesn’t raise my consciousness in any way, or allow me to write better songs, or anything like that.  I also don’t really dig the whole pot culture scene in the first place, though I am quite aware that there are a lot of people who smoke pot and are not a part of that culture at all.

I’m already rambling.  This blog is about my trip with my brother Russ to NORML Con, which was being held in Berkeley, California.  Russ was asked to record the whole event, and he enlisted me for help.  I said yes, for obvious reasons and for not-so obvious reasons (like I had never been to California before).

So now, I present to you, my very very long blog post about NORML Con (split into five entries), which I like to call:

I Survived NORML Con and All I Got was This Lousy Blog Post

WEDNESDAY, October 15, 2008

It’s funny how the cosmos works.  For some reason things always happen on the same day, whether you intend them to occur on that day or not.  Wednesday was that kind of day for me.  After weeks of virtual lethargy (and maybe a slight depression from not being able to find a job), I suddenly had things to do!  My first stop was the DMV, where I was to get a bona fide Oregon driver’s license, allowing me to drive across the state (and across state lines) without being hassled by a police officer.  This had nothing to do with pot.  I was just nervous because I had an expired Idaho license for four months and it kept me from doing awesome things.

I got up early to get to the DMV to get my license.  That was relatively uneventful.  I didn’t score as well on the test as I wished, but that’s okay, because standardized testing sucks.  I do, however, look pretty awesome on my picture.  It’s the first license I have where I’m sporting long hair.  Bitchin, dude.

After getting my license I took an hour long MAX trip to Beaverton for a job interview.  They have yet to call me back.  Thank you, failing economy!  I thought I did pretty well on the interview, too.  Oh well.  I took an hour trip back home after that, then packed and got ready to drive through the night.  But first we watched the final presidential debate.  Let me just ask this again: People are still thinking about voting for John McCain?  Who are these people?  Are they robots?  Are they really old people who just connect with McCain because he’s old too?  I don’t get it.

Bags packed, debate over, we stuffed our bodies into Russ’s Jeep and started the drive down to Berkeley.  But first, we had to detour slightly east to Bend, Oregon, for reasons I’m pretty sure I can’t talk about in this blog.  I dunno, maybe I can.  It wasn’t anything special, but at the same time, I don’t want anyone to get in trouble for anything.  So I won’t.

Okay, fine.  We bought a bear.  A live grizzly bear.  Russ always wanted one and I thought it was a great idea.  His name is Mickey and he lives in our backyard now.  He’s gentle, except when he tries to maim you.

Bend added a good hour to our ten hour trip (making it … come on, you can do it … eleven hours!  Yeah!), all of which was done entirely in the dark.  Less traffic, smoother drive.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that you’re fighting sleep the entire way there.  I think I did pretty well on the way there, but the way back is a whole other story entirely.

Also, I can now safely say that I’ve seen northern California only at night.