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It's legal to buy recreational marijuana now in Michigan. . .hey, Michigan is cool!
I wondered what it's like to buy dope? I mean, is it just like walking into a 7-Eleven and buying a pack of KOOLs?
No. [sigh.] No. [sigh.]
No, it's not just like walking into a 7-Eleven and buying a pack of KOOLs. No. It's more like driving to the pot store (with the rather cumbersome name Exclusive Ann Arbor Medical & Recreational Marijuana) and then being directed into a huge semi-heated tent attached to the pot store and then standing in a 200 person line for two hours and forty-five minutes and then being admitted, ten at a time, into the pot store inner sanctum where a crew of 5 *budtenders* take your order at the pot counter and charge you $24 a gram (+16% for various taxes). That's what it's like. . .
I don't smoke dope. I smoked a little dope in my teens, but it just made me tired. I should say, it just made me more tired. I've always been tired, I was born tired, and I've lived my entire life tired, not because I can't sleep, I have no problem sleeping, it's just that when I wake up, I'm still tired because I've always had a tiring sleep, when I was a child I had nightmares, and as an adult I dream I am at work, so. . .I'm always tired, and hence dope doesn't do anything for me except exaggerate my natural tired state.
A friend wanted to buy some dope, so I decided to tag along, just to see what it was like. Neither the friend nor me had any idea it was going to be a three hour ordeal.
Well, apparently dope stores are a good business with a future of solid growth.@@
It was no aberration, the long line. . .
It's like that everyday. . .all day, every day, according to the *budtender* when asked if there was a less busy time to visit.
You see, it's not just people in my town who go to the dope store. It's not just people in my state who go to the dope store. There were people waiting in line who had driven from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. I suppose if you can afford to buy in bulk it's worth the trip?
Well, I must say the loooonnng wait in line (where the back half of the tent where the space heater is located is warm, and the front half of the tent is chilly) was as pleasant as could be expected, the people were quiet and orderly. No jostling. Everybody respected a small amount of personal space. The crowd was probably 90% white, which surprised me, I was expecting a more *Cypress Hill* crowd. There were all ages, though mostly young.
The store staff and *budtenders* were a mix of hipsters, thug life wannabes and old school stoners. The store had a small collection of disappointingly dull t-shirts and no obviously apparent *Cheech&Chong-ish* paraphernalia.
All told, it was a long, boring three hours. . .recommended only for those who REALLY REALLY want to buy dope legally.
@@I suppose as robots and AI take more and more jobs, and as more and more people sit around with nothing to do but wait for their universal basic income checks, these are the types of *new industries* that will flourish: vices that were previously illegal. More and more drugs will be legalized, just as more and more forms of gambling are now being legalized, and just as sex will probably become legalized.
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. . .Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.
What does this birth narrative of Jesus teach us?
The world's kingdoms are not God's kingdom. The way of the world is not God's way. The world's kingdoms operate under Satanic order.
The world order at the time of the incarnation was anti-Christ.
And even though Jesus came preaching the Kingdom of God, some 2000 years later the world order remains anti-Christ.
The world order and God's kingdom are adversaries. Herod would not step aside for the Kingdom of God. Herod sought to kill the Christ child to maintain the Satanic World Order.
Herod knew Christ was a threat to his world order. Christ remains a threat to the world order of our day (including, as it did in Herod's day, the religious world order: there shall not be left here one stone upon another).
The Satanic World Order remains to this day. Anyone who pledges allegiance to a kingdom of the world is an anti-Christ. If you subjugate any of Jesus' kingdom teachings to a world kingdom, you are an anti-Christ. For example, an American who supports war is anti-Christ, for Christ (and the early Church) clearly taught against war (Luke 9:51-56, The Early Christian Attitude to War). An American who supports neoliberalism (including usurious finance capitalism) is anti-Christ (Luke 6:24, 30, 34, 38, Mathew 6:19-21, 24, Acts 2:44-45).
The birth narrative of Jesus teaches the way of the world is wrong, the True Way is God's Kingdom, which He sent His Son to show. The Jesus star is the star of our True King. As the wise men show, you cannot follow the Jesus star and the way of the world. They are at odds with each other. The individual must decide for one or the other.
But as I look around our miserable American world this Christmas Day, I see a church that is largely compromised with self-proclaimed Christians who live their lives in the futile struggle to serve two masters. They live as the world lives 6 days a week, supporting war and chasing money and many of the other ways of the Satanic World Order, then on Sunday they line-up in the Communion drive-through for a thimble of grape juice and a tiny cube or circle of bread, supposedly done in remembrance of Him.
The true significance of Christmas has been buried under the bows, ribbons and wrapping paper of the Consumer Holy Day.
Christmas is now meant as the orgy of the material way of life in the Satanic World Order. Man is no longer meant to be fruitful and multiply, spreading the Image of God through the Cosmos, but meant to consume the flesh of Satan.
The Western man in particular is a sad soul-less loser, having given his life to the pursuit of money (trained from birth the mission of life is to *get a good job*). The money is spent on a lifetime of endless consumption, and even now, in our late stage neoliberalism, consumption has become a near 24 hour a day occupation, for the Western loser not only consumes material objects, he must now spend his *free time* consuming electronic objects. The GoogleAppleFacebookAmazon Man. GAFA Man gives his soul in the form of data in exchange for a virtual existence.
The story of Christmas is the story of a world that is wrong, and of its Creator sending His Son as True King to show the right way.
Why is there so little evidence of the Kingdom of God in the world today? It's simple. Practically no one follows the Jesus Star@@.
Instead of choking our souls with material junk on Christmas, we ought to be examining our souls. On Christmas Day we ought to ask ourselves:
Are we following the way of the world? Or are we following the Jesus Star?
@@In America those who call themselves followers of Jesus are, by and large, the most fanatical supporters of war and neoliberalism. In point of fact, one of these false followers recently compared the impeachment of Donald Trump to the trial of Jesus! Some even claim Trump was chosen by God to lead this worldly kingdom of America! Thus, they attribute to God that which is in the domain of Satan!
Thursday night at the Royal Oak Music Theater I attended a comedy performance by the disgraced funnyman Louis C.K. You will remember C.K. got caught in the #MeToo wave a couple years ago when stories surfaced alleging Louis had a *tendency* to expose his penis and stroke it until ejaculation in front of women who didn't ask to see that particular *stand-up* act. When C.K. confessed to his offensive masturbation mania, his skyrocketing career immediately crashed and burned: a completed movie was pulled from distribution, FX, with whom he had several successful projects, dropped him, TBS canceled a planned series, Netflix canceled a concert show and HBO removed his specials from their on-demand service. Louis has claimed his aggressive wanking habit cost him $35 million in lost income.
But now Louis is back on the stand-up circuit trying to resurrect his career, and he began his Thursday night set by asking: so how's your last two years been? He told the audience he learned a lot in his exile: how to eat alone in a restaurant while people point a middle finger at him, who his real friends are (sadly, not the cool people he liked, but the insufferable boors he could previously barely tolerate). After this quick recap, C.K. veered into a quixotic array of topics: religion, three-legged dogs, legless humans, Auschwitz, 9/11, the sex lives of mothers, European villages, little shops, retardation, and many others—all skillfully woven together in Louis' trademark narrative style examining the often-absurd minutiae of human experience and revealing our hypocritical, irrational, or just plain dumb reactions to the everyday events of our bewildering lives. And yes, Louis is still the funniest son-of-a-bitch out there. He received a well-deserved standing ovation at the conclusion of his roughly 40 minute performance.
Late in the set C.K. did return more specifically to the solo sex acts which caused his downfall. He claimed he always asked the women first if he could show them his penis before exposing it, and that his real mistake was not being able to discern that their seeming acceptance of his masturbation masked a disgust they were too intimidated to express. By splicing this defense into a couple jokes, it was clear Louis felt his punishment (public shame/lost income) far exceeded his *crime.* Should this detract from our estimation of C.K.? I've learned from toiling nine years in a county jail that Judas hanging himself over his misdeed is the exception, rather than the rule, of human nature. Most of us tend to be more merciful to ourselves than our neighbors.
What was more troubling was the angry nihilism in much of C.K.'s routine, particularly the bits focused on *religion.* A self-proclaimed *atheist,* C.K. spent a fair amount of his time belligerently pondering God's nature, and, in one regrettable instance, posited a vulgar second death for Jesus. Due to Louis' spiritual vitriol, one could suspect a latent tendency common to *atheists:* the blame of God for their plagues. Unable or unwilling to fully locate the source of their troubles within themselves, they look for a supernatural cause. We suspect C.K. of a subconscious accusation against God: God caused Louis' fall from his beloved celebrity. God either cursed him with his masturbation mania, or refused to protect him from its revelation. Why me, God?
It would have been obvious to even the most casual observer in Thursday night's audience that the disgraced funnyman Louis CK bemoans his besmirched state. Though there was always a mordant tinge to C.K.'s humor, it was leavened with a schlub's optimism. Though undeniably still funny, the laughs are now produced by a bitter, resentful wit. While watching C.K.'s almost *thanks for nothing* acceptance of the audience's ovation, I couldn't help but imagine a dark ending for the still-master jokester if he proves unable to rehabilitate his celebrity.
I remember seeing this movie as a kid, maybe when I was 10 or 12 years old, and thinking it was pretty cool. Then a couple days ago I see it's showing on FXM. I figured I would watch it and laugh at how hokey and dated it would now seem. After all, this thing was made 51 years ago. We're used to shit like Se7en, now. Well, this almost docudrama-style telling of the Boston Strangler case (13 strangled women, most of them old bags, but a couple young hotties thrown in the mix), has held up remarkably well. In fact, I would say it seems far less dopey than The Silence of the Lambs, a movie made 23 years later, but which with its *fava beans and a nice chianti* killer now seems pretty campy.
The biggest drawback to The Boston Strangler is the film's first half features numerous split screen shots, of which only a few really work (the ones showing victims and the oblivious people about to discover them). The split screen shit must have seemed quite film school avant-garde back in the day, but viewed in 2019 it's mainly distracting.
Although I say the movie has a docudrama feel to it, it must be noted the story presents a highly fictionalized version of the strangler, Albert DeSalvo. He's portrayed as suffering from a split personality and being unaware of his crimes until the film's *dramatic* ending, so don't watch this thing expecting some Wikipedia DeSalvo, watch it instead as a luridly gripping (put ID Network in a time machine set to 1968) serial killer movie inspired by the Strangler case.
I guarantee you will be surprised by how much homosexuality, sex perversion and fetish is shown and discussed in this 51 year old movie. The great actor William Hickey plays with pathetic perfection one of the sad perverts the police mistakenly suspect as the Strangler—you'll feel so sorry for him, you'll want to go to Poshmark and get him a Louis Vuitton bag (watch the movie and you'll understand the reference).
The police call homosexuals *faggots,* but in one scene set in a gay bar, Henry Fonda, who (blandly, as usual) plays the guy in charge of the Strangler task force, acknowledges the humanity of a fag, I mean, gay character (that had to be quite forward thinking back in 1968, no?).
What really holds this film together, and keeps it watchable to this day, is the remarkable performance by Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo. Curtis isn't even on screen for the first half of the movie, which shows the crime scenes and follows law enforcement's futile attempts to identify the Strangler. Just as the novelty of the pervert and fetishist suspects is starting to wear off, and you begin to tire of the police procedural, Curtis appears, looking sad and strangely alone as he sits in a chair watching JFK's funeral on television, while his wife and kids make a racket in the kitchen.
The last hour of the movie is devoted to the slow unraveling of Curtis' DeSalvo, and it's a performance that few actors could pull off, for it demands one of the most difficult-to-navigate scenes in movie history, which we will detail next. But what's amazing is that it's Tony Curtis! People today probably don't even know who he is, but Curtis was a *movie star!* The guy was mainly known as a pretty boy, a lightweight who mostly did comedies and romances. But this film was shot when Curtis was pretty much a has-been, headed for TV roles. Still, it must have been quite a shock for 1968 audiences to see the former gOOfball from Some Like It Hot rip open a woman's dress, tie her to a bed and then punch the shit out of her. Try imagining Tom Hanks playing the BTK killer instead of Mr. Rogers.
Anyway, about that difficult-to-navigate scene: The Boston Strangler ends with a loooonnng near-monologue in which Curtis-as-DeSalvo discovers his murderer's personality, and it requires Curtis to pantomime one of his murders. I can imagine 99 out of 100 actors trying this, and failing. . .failing so badly as to provoke disbelieving laughter from the audience. It's amazing that the former *matinee idol* Curtis pulls this scene off, but he does. In fact, he owns it, it's all there, a killer's soul lit up by sick desire, the euphoria of the prey in his grip, the rage to kill and the orgasmic little death of the kill, the whimpering withdrawal and then the crash to self-disgust and denial. It's a forgotten great performance from a forgotten movie that was ahead of its time.
The Impeachment of Donald J. Trump: It's a matter of very little consequence, and I have even less interest in it than its meager merit. I suppose the favorable outcome would be Trump re-elected, which would hasten the much-needed decline of America. What is extremely bothersome, and a sign of the times, is the attitude of many *conservative republican* self-proclaimed Christians: that Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ weeps for Donald J. Trump. I suppose other things could be further from the truth, but. . .the Heavenly Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, trust me, are not fretting over that fat pussy Donald. Self-proclaimed Christians who waste prayer time on the impeachment would do well to open their Bibles to Matthew 7:21-23 and pray instead the Holy Spirit give them insight into themselves, and then re-workout their own salvation with much phobias and traumas.
The Walking Dead: The first half of Season 10 has been slightly better than the horrible Season 9, due chiefly to Negan being released from character purgatory. The rest of the characters and storylines are just as lame and nauseatingly diverse as the last couple crappy seasons, in which the viewer could only fidget through the achingly dull and patronizingly pedagogical We Are The World scripts wishing death for the expanding cast of annoying awareness ribbon characters. Thankfully one such character, the *good muslim* Siddiq, was killed off in Episode 7, and as he lay dying, I was prompted to make a list of TWD's All-Time 10 Most Annoying Characters:
1. Andrea, neurotic ugly cunt
2. Henry, ADHD half-wit
3. Eugene, Fat pseudo-Dr. Smith with a mullet
4. Carol, mousy doormat improbably turned Wonder Woman
5. Every homo character (especially Aaron)
6. Every black character (including saint Morgan/excluding psycho Morgan)
7. Glenn, delivery boy dork improbably turned teenage mutant ninja turtle
8. Carl, twerpy tween improbably turned popeyed messiah
9. Jerry, fat gook court jester
10. Judith, Family Dollar Hit Girl
The National Football League: I watched the 49ers/Ravens game today. Good game. Resembled an old school Big 10 contest. The Ravens game winning field goal *drive* went maybe 30 yards, and took 6 fucking minutes off the clock! Woody Hayes' ghost spurted ectoplasm. Anyway, we were told last week that Ravens' QB Lamar Jackson had *changed the NFL.* OK. We're told this every year about some new fad. Remember Chip Kelly? Remember the RPO? Remember Sean McVay? Patrick Mahomes? Every year the NFL is *changed,* yet it somehow remains its same monotonous self. Did you see the Auburn - Alabama game? No NFL game can ever match that energy, emotion and random craziness. The college game is superior, and always will be. But, Lamar Jackson. Yeah, he can run. But so could Bobby Douglass almost 50 years ago. Bobby couldn't pass for shit. . .and neither can Lamar Jackson. Bobby Douglass had a shitty Chicago Bears team surrounding him, and they lost week-in and week-out. Lamar Jackson is on a solid Ravens team. . .but if the Ravens are ever down 10 points in the 4th quarter, forget it, they're beat. Jackson is a horrible passer. The Lamar Jackson NFL will last about as long as the Chip Kelly NFL.
US Workforce Dying At A Record Pace: So read the headline of a recent news story which states the engine that powers the world’s most potent economy is dying at a worrisome pace, a “distinctly American phenomenon’’ with no easily discernible cause or simple solution. Those are some of the conclusions from a comprehensive new study by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University showing that mortality rates for U.S. adults ages 25-64 continue to increase, driving down the general population’s life expectancy for at least three consecutive years. The study paints a bleak picture of a workforce plagued by drug overdoses, suicides and organ-system diseases while grappling with economic stresses. While I agree there is no simple solution, there is an easily discernible cause, which I recently explained recently here.
