Yesterday I was lucky enough to be able to sit through a lecture by John Sinclair, who has gained notoriety for three things, the first of which was being the manager of MC5 during their heyday, the second being his unique and inspired form of blues-infused poetry (a pretty impressive thing to see live), and the last, and perhaps most significant (at least as far as this post is concerned) was his 1969 arrest (sentenced to 10 years) for distributing two joints to an undercover cop, which was to become the subject of a famous John Lennon tune. When asked about his arrest, a question I'm sure he has fielded no less than three thousand times, John (in so many words) had this to say:
'Hell, at that time, I would have given anyone two joints. You going somewhere? Here, here's one for the road.'
That in itself speaks to a whole host of issues regarding the spirit of his 'heyday' and the spirit of our times, but that's another discussion for another day.
While searching for videos of some of John's performances on YouTube, I came across a couple terribly recorded performances and one two-part performance that was excellently recorded, but unfortunately restricted from embedding in blogs and the sort, which was disappointing. However, I did come across this neat little video, which seemed to fit perfectly into my recent posting streak about drugs (blame it on the history channel!).
Burning Rainbow: A short doc-film promoting the book "Burning Rainbow Farm."
Now, in general, I consider myself all for the legalization of marijuana for various reasons, but I find myself not fitting into the mindset of more ardent 'activists,' because of one simple fact: I'm not nearly educated enough on this subject in particular to build a rock solid platform. I am also (unfortunately) cursed with reality-induced apathy. This is not to say that progress has not been made and that certain people should stop pushing for what they believe in. John, for example, after his arrest, has actually made serious progress in certain areas with decriminalizing pot and is probably still, after nearly 50 years of activism, still one of the most active activists (sorry) in his field (sorry again). I've come to grips with the fact that I have not the stroke, nor the muscle, nor the platform to change anyone's mind about the subject, or at least anyone important's viewpoint.
In my mind, there's a lot to be said about personal impact. I don't want the campus socialists pushing "Socialist Worker" newspapers in my face when I'm on my way to class. I'm not touched by three burnouts sparking a joint
on a college campus at 4:20PM on April 24th in futile protest. I'm not an idiot. I'm not enlightened by forceful preaching. All I want is to be spoken to like the intelligent human being that I fancy myself to be, and I want to be moved by honesty. If we accomplish nothing, if John accomplishes nothing in terms of widespread legal gain, we will always have personal impact. John's performances in my poetry class yesterday and the words he had to share about all things (the weed portion of his lecture was actually the shortest) got to me. I was ready to be moved, and he provided. We could benefit so much more from speaking honestly to the people that want to be moved than imposing our will, no matter how good-natured, on people that just aren't ready to hear it.
