Yeah, But Have You Listened to Bach on Acid?

The Typing Monkey recently peered through the magic keyhole of On An Overgrown Path, a blog that holds a flickering candle into the odd corners of the world of classical music. Cancel your meetings and forward the phones, 'cause you're going to be doing some reading.

Overgrown Path's (sole?) contributor goes by the hand Pliable, and whoever that is, he or she is about to go away for a while and put the blog on hold. No matter. That will give you time to catch up.

To get you started, here are a few links to stories from Overgrown Path that will keep your attention:

From "JSB on LSD" -- "'Let me advise you, if you ever use mescaline or LSD in therapy, to try the effect of [Johann Sebastian Bach's] B-minor suite.'" That's an excerpt from a letter Aldous Huxley wrote to psychiatrist Humphry Osmond. The B-minor suite will always trump Pink Floyd.

And do make sure to read the one-two punch about Edward Elgar, who has a gossamer connection to early LSD experiments, and a clear connection to the Order of the Golden Dawn. Who knew?

There's much more to On An Overgrown Path -- listening and reading recommendations galore -- so have fun.

And So It Begins

Here we are three days into October and you probably feel like we've left you at T-ball practice and it's starting to rain. Relax, get yourself a beverage and grab a donut -- you know the drill.

Welcome to the 5th annual Typing Monkey Halloween Frenzy. For the next 30 27 days we'll do our best to pollute your innocent eyes with as much seasonal evil as possible.

However, we will stick with tradition by easing you into things with a video from filmmaker we featured last  year. This one's not Halloween related, but might scare you and your cats.


Catnip: Egress to Oblivion? [Classroom Drug Educational Film] from Jason Willis on Vimeo.

Can We Stay at Grandma's?

Perhaps you've heard of Darlene Mayes, the so-called "Ganja Granny." According to news reports, the 73-year-old ran a four-state marijuana distribution operation from her rural Oklahoma home. And in case it's unclear, what she did is monumentally illegal.

Thing is, stories like Mayes' are becoming about as common as dime bags at a Foghat show.

A simple Web search on "ganja granny" turns up three other senior women who've earned the title. And the past five-plus years have seen news stories about elderly citizens in the United States turning to dealing controlled substances, frequently to simply pay the bills, but sometimes because they use the product -- most often marijuana -- themselves.

While the reports of Mayes' case don't specify if she was a smoker, there was paraphernalia in her home. However that's not really why we post this story.

The take-away for all of us at The Typing Monkey has been the big bag of questions and considerations the Ganja Granny case provokes.

There are multiple reports that as Baby Boomers age, they're turning toward controlled substances they may've enjoyed during their youth. Pain pills are common, yes, but marijuana use among their demographic is on the rise.

And having enough money to live a reasonable life after retirement age is a growing concern as well. There are only so many senior citizens willing and able to serve up smiles and fast food. Clearly the pot trade doesn't discriminate based on age.

Will Boomers final er, contribution to our culture be a push for the legalization of marijuana? Their numbers are legion and if past generations are any indication, soon they'll have nothing but time and the feisty anger of the old.

Holding in the Spirit World

The Typing Monkey likes to pretend that there are no other media outlets, but the guys in typesetting brought an article to our attention that merits mention. (That they stopped giggling long enough to put together a complete sentence surprised us all.)

The mummified remains of a 2,700-year-old corpse were uncovered in China's Gobi desert recently. Buried along with the man was a musical instrument, a bow and arrow, some other odds and ends and a big bag of marijuana. Not hemp for rope and clothing, but good old fashioned pot -- the female buds of the plant that some folks smoke or bake into brownies for the purpose of getting high.

Now, burying your dead with items they prized while living is not unusual. And sending loved ones into the great beyond with tools they might need in the afterlife is not unheard of either. The Egyptians put wine and other gifts into tombs so that the deceased could gain entry into the next world.

What's worth noting in the article is that the scientists who examined the Gobi mummy's personal effects are puzzled by the absence of a pipe or other smoking device. Academically, they not only wonder if the cannabis was for "spiritual or medicinal" purposes, but how this man and his people enjoyed the benefits of their marijuana since it's not clear how he was supposed to torch up in the great beyond.

The Typing Monkey offers an alternate theory. Let's cast aside the idea that his rolling papers disintegrated, or that a clay or wood pipe that was interred with him decayed over the centuries. This gentlemen's stash is an offering for the inhabitants of the next world.

If you're bringing wine to Zeus and his fellow gods and goddesses, you don't bring some crummy bronze goblet you bought at the open-air market. They live on Mount Olympus -- they have quality drinking vessels. Just bring your best wine and let them serve it up. Likewise, you don't bring a stein for Odin. You bring some quality mead and hope he welcomes you and your gift.

Whoever this fellow in the Gobi believed he was going to meet once he crossed over into the great beyond, he did the right thing by brining the best his people had to offer and counted on his ancient Chinese deities to have a proper smoke-delivery system. The gods gave him the cannabis, surely they know how to indulge.

Here's the article.

The Monkey Reads: I Have Fun Everywhere I Go

I HAVE FUN EVERYWHERE I GO
Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World
By Mike Edison
(Faber and Faber)
If the subtitle of this autobiography doesn’t make it abundantly clear, Mike Edison confesses outright in the author’s note: He’s prone to hyperbole.

Edison -- a musician and former magazine editor, publisher and writer -- spins his overlong yarn like a sometimes-entertaining attention hog at a party where the reader is a stranger, trapped by this odd man and his ramblings.

Most of Fun chronicles Edison’s career as a writer and editor of pornography, wrestling fan magazines and eventually as the editor-in-chief/publisher of the infamous weed magazine, High Times. But he spends too many pages detailing his time in various hardcore, garage-rock and experimental rhythm & blues bands.

An early section about Edison’s childhood and adolescence spews excessive vitriol about what sounds like a fairly typical life for a child of divorce. Mom and dad fought, split up, and Edison, the oldest of two boys in a Jewish family in 1970s New Jersey, sought refuge in the common outlets of music and recreational drug use. What’s he so upset about?

His rock & roll tour diaries are repetitive and ultimately dull. Vicarious drug stories always run the risk of boring and Edison's recounting of his Homeric indulgence of booze, pills, hallucinogens and marijuana hits the wall quickly. He's also the biggest fan of his own music. While not a crime, that doesn't help move the story along.

Edison’s time served in the Kafka-esque High Times offices are a bright spot. These tales would entertain readers who’ve never worked for a magazine -- let alone those who've never smoked pot -- primarily because a poisonous job situation is a nearly universal misery.

Fun could have been an insider’s history of High Times, the world of non-WWE professional wrestling, or a sharp portrait of a life lived in the twilight of a pre-internet publishing world.

Instead it's an overwritten memoir that makes everything catalogued in the book's subtitle seem boring. Edison may have fun everywhere he goes, but does he have to take us with him?

Reference materials: If you must read Fun, The Typing Monkey warned you. Allow us to suggest an alternative: Listen to some dirty blues, ingest mind-altering substances, and watch old wrestling footage yourself. Just don't tell us about it.