Getting Into The Wind

Time Capsule 1970

Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis

Another Moment of Terrifying Clarity:   Just a thought. Our Supreme Court in it's wisdom, deemed corporations have the same rights as people. However corporations don't pay people taxes. They have corporate exemptions. So it seems logical to sue corporations for the return of said exemption money to the U.S.Treasury-not to mention the IRS. After all, it's for exactly the same reason--disallowing normal corporate exemptions claimed by our cannabis dispensaries--that the IRS is going after them. Meanwhile they are not above accepting tax money from what they claim is an illegal enterprise. Where is Zorro when we need him?                                 


Author's note: The following is sort of a digression from my usual first person recollections. However since it was written on the spot, day-to-day, i felt it might be useful to know what it was really like to be part of this still-unequalled cultural movement--if only to understand motivations that might seem reckless in today's corporate society..        
And while we are all here it seems like a good time to thank my friend, consigliere, and editor on this rambling oral journey--Robert Gilman... 

Getting Into The Wind
( continuing my log of that 1970 voyage from New York to Tangier)

Saturday morning, the 18th of Febuary, Scorpio woke to the throb of the ship pulling out. He got up, took a peek out the porthole, and went back to sleep. As far as he was concerned the boat started sailing days ago. That afternoon Scorpio went to lunch alone. Mysterious Traveling Companion was out of commision due to flu and couldn't leave her cabin. A classic ploy.
Lunch was sparse, only Pack and Tina, a few of the old folks, and two of the collegians across the hall. Things picked up in the lounge after lunch. Scorpio ran into a face he knew. Blaine was a waiter at one of his favorite neighborhood hangouts. He was taking his BMW to Yugoslavia and making a run to India.
A young girl wandered in holding a recorder. She sat down and began blowing soft, mournful notes.
Pack drifted by from a conversation with a cat with an FBI haircut and a wild backwoods gleam in his eye. The man was fresh off an Alaskan oil rig and bound for some speculation in Morocco. Pack and Blaine talked motorcycles for a while. Then Blaine went out to check his bike's rigging while Pack and Scorpio shook their heads, knowing what the other was thinking. They start out for India with some spare parts and a map. Later you catch them in Istanbul wheeling a bent frame and holding a clutch cable in their trembling hand.
"Wait man," Pack snapped his fingers gleefully, "that's when it's just getting to be FUN." Although both agreed Blaine was cool they later discovered he had never broken down his bike. He'd watched someone do it and figured he'd learn as he went. Pack nodded sagely, aware necessity was a sharp spur but nonetheless offered to go over the machine with Blaine when the weather settled.
For at this point the sea was fitful--and quickly getting worse. The ship was rocking...and rolling--no stabilizers on a frieghter, so...it was time to read.
The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test concerned itself with some of the matters Scorpio had been meditating on this trip. Are you off the bus--or On The Boat?
Outside the weather was building into a serious storm.
That night at dinner it was tough keeping food on the table. The steward battened down the portholes with a worried look on his usually impassive face. At Scorpio's table Tina and Pack were discovering there was no way to eat on a ship pitching like Warren Spahn (who used to lean wayyy back, his foot straight up in the air before he threw) so talk was muted.
It was useless to do anything but get into your bunk and cool it.
The waves got ever wilder with each hour however, and Scorpio was reduced to gritting his teeth as he watched the curtains lift almost parallel to the floor with each immense heave of the ship. For the next two days the Tuhobic continued to struggle through high, dangerous seas. Passengers were forbidden on the upper decks. Objects flew around the cabin at will. The steward wet down the tablecloth to keep the plates from sliding. Transferring food to mouth was a major logistic problem.
But finally, one morning the weather broke.
It was reasonable. Objects remained in a fixed position. Plates of food remained still long enough for one to spear a bite or two. Scorpio arrived at lunch refreshed by his first eight hour sleep in two days. Garfunkle was there, having made all the meals, as had Pack and Tina, now known as The Mad Eater.
Pack had been juicing pretty good on the tax free booze while maintaining a steady communication with Scorpio. The both of them knocking each other out with experiences and people. "From obscure corners of our reality," Pack confided to Garfunkel later on.
Or as Cole once put it,"Life is just a story to tell."

Next: The Long Rap