The night before the 1st of May is known as Beltane and also known as May eve. It is an ancient Celtic holiday that celebrates the coming of spring and summer.
Traditions include dancing around the Maypole, Bright clothing and flowers, and drinking heather mead.
So why celebrate such an ancient holiday? Our ancestors took these beliefs seriously before the Romans implanted Christianity on Europe and forced an end to all the original religions. That meant revising our history so Winter Solstice became Christmas, Samhain became Halloween and Beltane disappeared altogether. As a tribute to my ancestors I will celebrate this weekend for Beltane. Then on Monday, I will celebrate international workers day which is May 1. It is a political holiday that originally celebrated the winning of an 8 hour work day by unions in Chicago, IL.
Counter-culture Journals (文革)
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Getting high on MDA in the 1970s : Book Excerpt
Getting high on MDA in the 1970s from Memoirs Of A Drugged-up, Sex-crazed Yippie
Methylenedioxyamphetamine was more of a mid western drug trend. It was rarely mentioned in the news media and was not well known to the east or west coast drug scene. It may have been similar to ecstasy. I really dont know since Ive never tried ecstasy. Some people said it is a type of speed, some claimed it was an aphrodisiac, but for me it was a hallucinogen when I shot it up. And injecting was the only way Id ever tried it.
We walked to my upstairs apartment by climbing the rickety wooden stairs on the side of a large white house that had been split into apartments. We walked though the living room, which was cluttered with boxes of my things that I had never unpacked and shelves that held my political science and philosophy books.
We went into the tiny kitchen that had bare yellow walls, a white sink with a few dirty dishes and an old white gas stove. There was a large brown wooden table in the middle of the room, surrounded by four simple wooden chairs. I put the paper with the dope on the table and got out some spoons. I also got out my shoebox of syringes. This substance called for a 1-cubic-centimeter diabetic syringe with a 26-gauge needle. I filled a glass with some warm water, got out a few Q-tips and we were ready to begin.
By now, Vic, one of my down stairs neighbors, came in. He noticed I had just arrived with some drugs. Vic and I often got high together. Vic was a tall stocky man with long stringy hair, who usually wore a T-shirt with a leather vest over it. He looked a little like a biker. He had a wallet with a chain attached to his belt, which was standard wear for bikers.
What have you got? Vic said.
MDA, I answered.
Can I do a small pinch?
Sure.
You want some dont you Harry?
Sure!
I took a razor blade and cut a small line for Harry to snort, since he didnt like needles. Vic had his own syringe. Vic and I each put a few pinches in a spoon, added a little less than a cc of warm water and mixed it with the plastic red needle cover caps that came with our syringes.
I took an old sock to make a tourniquet around my arm so my vein would stick out. I used my mouth and my knee to hold the tourniquet in place. I stuck the needle in and pulled the plunger, which immediately drew some blood into the syringe. I knew I had hit the vein. I released the sock, pushed the plunger, injecting the drug straight into my bloodstream. I pulled the plunger again, which pulled in more blood, so I could push any left over drugs that were still in the syringe into my veins.
The rush hit me immediately after I pulled out the needle. I felt the pulsating effects of the MDA. It felt like a surge of electricity or energy of some type. It tingled and I could hear a slight buzzing in my ears. Orange, red and yellow spiral patterns appeared to spring from the wall and rainbow like crystals seemed to flow from the light bulb on my ceiling. It resembled a psychedelic light show or one of those old psychedelic posters from a head shop. This was all typical of an MDA rush. I felt something else. It was a warm euphoric glow flowing all over my body. This was more typical of a narcotic high. The combination was so intense that I threw up on the floor. It was the kind of throwing up a person might do while flying upside down in an airplane for the first time. It wasnt a bad feeling and the high I had was worth every bit of it.
That must be pretty good stuff, Vic said. It takes a powerful rush to make you lose your cookies.
Thats why I dont shoot that stuff, Harry said. It is real good though.
It was the best MDA I had ever had. It was cut with some type of narcotic. I suspected heroin, since it was brown in color and Mexican heroin looks like brown sugar after its been cut a few times.
Methylenedioxyamphetamine was more of a mid western drug trend. It was rarely mentioned in the news media and was not well known to the east or west coast drug scene. It may have been similar to ecstasy. I really dont know since Ive never tried ecstasy. Some people said it is a type of speed, some claimed it was an aphrodisiac, but for me it was a hallucinogen when I shot it up. And injecting was the only way Id ever tried it.
We walked to my upstairs apartment by climbing the rickety wooden stairs on the side of a large white house that had been split into apartments. We walked though the living room, which was cluttered with boxes of my things that I had never unpacked and shelves that held my political science and philosophy books.
We went into the tiny kitchen that had bare yellow walls, a white sink with a few dirty dishes and an old white gas stove. There was a large brown wooden table in the middle of the room, surrounded by four simple wooden chairs. I put the paper with the dope on the table and got out some spoons. I also got out my shoebox of syringes. This substance called for a 1-cubic-centimeter diabetic syringe with a 26-gauge needle. I filled a glass with some warm water, got out a few Q-tips and we were ready to begin.
By now, Vic, one of my down stairs neighbors, came in. He noticed I had just arrived with some drugs. Vic and I often got high together. Vic was a tall stocky man with long stringy hair, who usually wore a T-shirt with a leather vest over it. He looked a little like a biker. He had a wallet with a chain attached to his belt, which was standard wear for bikers.
What have you got? Vic said.
MDA, I answered.
Can I do a small pinch?
Sure.
You want some dont you Harry?
Sure!
I took a razor blade and cut a small line for Harry to snort, since he didnt like needles. Vic had his own syringe. Vic and I each put a few pinches in a spoon, added a little less than a cc of warm water and mixed it with the plastic red needle cover caps that came with our syringes.
I took an old sock to make a tourniquet around my arm so my vein would stick out. I used my mouth and my knee to hold the tourniquet in place. I stuck the needle in and pulled the plunger, which immediately drew some blood into the syringe. I knew I had hit the vein. I released the sock, pushed the plunger, injecting the drug straight into my bloodstream. I pulled the plunger again, which pulled in more blood, so I could push any left over drugs that were still in the syringe into my veins.
The rush hit me immediately after I pulled out the needle. I felt the pulsating effects of the MDA. It felt like a surge of electricity or energy of some type. It tingled and I could hear a slight buzzing in my ears. Orange, red and yellow spiral patterns appeared to spring from the wall and rainbow like crystals seemed to flow from the light bulb on my ceiling. It resembled a psychedelic light show or one of those old psychedelic posters from a head shop. This was all typical of an MDA rush. I felt something else. It was a warm euphoric glow flowing all over my body. This was more typical of a narcotic high. The combination was so intense that I threw up on the floor. It was the kind of throwing up a person might do while flying upside down in an airplane for the first time. It wasnt a bad feeling and the high I had was worth every bit of it.
That must be pretty good stuff, Vic said. It takes a powerful rush to make you lose your cookies.
Thats why I dont shoot that stuff, Harry said. It is real good though.
It was the best MDA I had ever had. It was cut with some type of narcotic. I suspected heroin, since it was brown in color and Mexican heroin looks like brown sugar after its been cut a few times.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Women of the Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was one of the first attempts at a communist workers state and many women took party
The Central Committee of the Union of Women for the Defense of Paris and the Care of the Wounded, ended up defending the commune with their lives. The Commune’s Labor Commission expected the women of Paris and with the constituting of federal and union chambers of united working women.
Louise Michel was an anarchist and a leader in the Paris Commune. She fought in the barricades to defend Paris from the French government that tried to wipe the communards out.
She was known for her poems:
I have seen criminals and whores
And spoken with them. Now I inquire
If you believe them made as now they are
To drag their rags in blood and mire
Preordained, an evil race?
You to whom all men are prey
Have made them what they are today.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Death
In her last year, Frida Kahlo painted simplistic pictures of Marxist Icons. Many of her followers and fans saw it as an embarrassment.[1] But Kahlo may have been looking for something to make the last year of her life whole. She had no religion, so communism was the closest thing she had. It may not have been her best work, but that may not have been the point. Her human, yet god-like figure heads Marx and Stalin may have been the only thing left to put her faith in. Even without the belief of an afterlife, a person still wants to know that their life has meaning and in the final chapter, there was a substance of belief- something to put one's faith in.
Even for those who deny the existence of an after-life, there is a need to draw meaning from one's own life and the life of others. Some of histories more famous philosophers have done so.
The Roman poet Lucretius observed on the death of his mentors:
"Democritus, when a mature old age
Warned him his mind and memory were fading,
Offered his head right willingly to death.
Epicurus himself died when the light of life
Had run its course, he who in genius
Surpassed the race of men, outshone them all"[2]
Mao used the concept of death to honor a fallen comrade in the military:
“All men must die, but death can vary in its significance. The ancient Chinese writer Szuma Chien said, "Though death befalls all men alike, it may be weightier than
Another positive and somewhat Taoist look at death was provided by Mao in 1958:
"Living is transformed into dying, lifeless matter is transformed into living beings. I propose that when people over the age of 50 die, a party should be held to celebrate, for it is in inevitable that men should die- this is natural law."[4]
Mao wrote a more Taoist views of death:
“Without life, there would be no death; without death, there would be no life.”[5]
Mao also found quotes from Frederick Engels that re-enforced his Taoist views on life and death:
“Life consists precisely and primarily in this- that a being is at each moment itself and yet something else. Life is therefore also a contradiction which is present in things and processes themselves, and which constantly originates and resolves itself; and as soon as the contradiction ceases, life, too, comes to an end and death steps in."[6]
Likewise Lao Tzu had views on death that were similar to Mao's: On the death of the poor people by oppressive leaders Lao Tzu said:
"Why do the people make light of death?
Because those above them make too much of life.....
The people have simply nothing to live upon!
They know better than to value such a life!"[7]
All of these are spins designed to make dying seem as if it’s not so bad. No one really looks forward to it. Like the end of a movie, book or favorite TV show, the entertainment is over. With death, there are no reruns that we can anticipate.
Many religions, including Christianity, offer rewards of a utopian life-after-death, that come from a life of great sacrifice. Their only purpose in life is to prepare for the next stage, after death. This is illogical.
There is always a chance that a part of us lives on in some way, after we are dead. If there is an infinite and intelligent god, there is a real question as to whom among us, he/she/it will keep around after our actual lives have ended. If we are kept around in some type of spiritual sense, it is unlikely we can really imagine what this after-life will be like. We know little more than the Egyptians did about it. Since all religion is man-made, we can only speculate on the reality of any life-after-death, if it exists at all.
And still as Democritus, the ancient Greek philosopher wrote:
"All men, aware of the wretchedness of life, suffer for their whole lives in trouble and fears, telling false stories about fear after death."[8]
Even without a life-after-death, the fear of death stalks us throughout our lives. We live the best we can, try not to think much about our own death and when it finally comes, we may find that accepting it is easier than fearing it.
As a young child, I dreaded dentist visits. Yet once the appointment was made, I had to accept that this visit was unavoidable and there was no longer any sense in putting it off. What ever happened, it was better to go through the process and get it over with. The same is with death. As it comes near, there comes a time to put away the fear and accept what we cannot avoid. At some point it makes sense to go through it and get it over with.
If hell is my fate I can accept that possibility. A room full of fascist Christians could never be heaven to me anyway. If there vision of heaven is correct, there is no way I would want to be among them when my time comes.
There are those who talk of extending life. There are doctors talking about changing our lifestyles to live longer. But longer to do what? What are we willing to give up to live to be 100? Is the life we have not enough. Should we live strictly and rigid lives to extend our time here? Are do we do as Mao said and celebrate the time we have?
Death is frightening enough as it is. We’re not suppose to drink, eat too much, watch too much TV, smoke, smoke pot, and there we’re not even suppose to eat fatty foods. Do we really need to create hell no earth to avoid death?
There is not disgrace in death.
[1] Frank Milner, Frida Kahlo, (PRC Limited,
[2] T. Lucretius Carus, On The Nature Of The Universe, Translated by Ronald Melville, (
[3] Mao Tsetung, (毛泽东) Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, Serve The People, 8 September, 1944, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_19.htm.
[4] "INSTANT WISDOM: BEYOND THE LITTLE RED BOOK," Time, 20 September 1976, Vol. 108, No. 12, p. 38.
[5] Mao Tsetung, On Contradiction, (Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1977) page 61.
[6] Mao Tsetung, On Contradiction, page 31.
[7] Lao Tzu, (老子)Tao Teh Ching, Translated John C. H. Wu, (Barns & Noble Books, New York, 1997) Chapter 75.
[8] Jonatnan Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy, (Penquin, London, 1987), Democritus, (Δημόκpιτoς) IV xxxiv 62: cf B 297, p. 282.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Mike Tyson, another famous Mao supporter
On a recent trip to China, Mike Tyson experessed his admiration for the late Mao Zedong. According to:
Sky News
Iron Mike's Mao Visit
April 04, 2006:
Mike Tyson has admitted feeling inadequate while gazing at Chairman Mao's remains.
The former heavyweight boxing champion is an admirer of Mao Zedong and has a tattoo of the communist ruler on his arm.
After attending Mao's mausoleum he told the Beijing News newspaper: "I felt really insignificant next to the remains of Chairman Mao."
The boxer added that the visit had been a great honour.
He then bought several books on Mao.
Monday, April 03, 2006
This spring read about The 1970s
Memoirs of a Drugged-Up, Sex-Crazed Yippie takes the reader through the life of a 1970s counter-culture drug user. Mark Spies goes from casual pot smoking to habitual use of pharmaceutical narcotics and cocaine. Due to the changing sexual attitudes, Spies has several unconventional sexual encounters. The 1970s brought us the "Woodstock generation." There was a sense of idealism that developed at the beginning and died at the end of that decade. Many counter-culture books focus on the 1960s, yet there are plenty of events in the 1970s that deserve attention. Nixon's war in Vietnam and Cambodia dominated the news and affected America's youth. Nixon's war on drugs impacted the counter-culture life style. Then there was punk rock, disco, casual cocaine use and revolutions braking out around the world by 1979.With politics in the background, this book gives the reader a look at drug use and the difficult business of drug dealing. The drugs, sexual attitudes, music and politics made the 1970s what they were. Taken as a whole, this book will give some insight into the people and events of the 1970s counter-culture.
The following book stores also have Memoirs:
Powell's books, and
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Protesters greet Rice in the UK
Officials of the George Bush administration just can’t travel abroad without people in the world letting them know how much the U.S. fucked up starting the war in
According to the BBC News, 31 March 2006:
In
Earlier she saw protesters at a school in Jack Straw's
She then went to Sir Paul McCartney's Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) for a concert in her honour.
Anti-war anthem
In
Earlier one student outside LIPA said it was a "disgrace" that Ms Rice had been invited to the academy when the former Beatle was an anti-war campaigner.
Protesters greet Rice.
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