Space Mountain

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Mountain  

Amusement park rides always bothered me with a bad case of "mal de mer", and so for many years I avoided them unless I took the over-the-counter meclizine pills that are sold here in the States for motion sickness. I often thought the dizziness was related to my hearing loss, and that the damage to my middle ear bones heightened the vertigo I felt during fast-spinning rides, but my father is more imapired than I am and he has great "sea legs". Oh, well. After experimenting with rides both on-and-off the pill, I knew it was best to take it an hour before any rollerocaster rides, which was about the length of the wait on the line in the summertime.

But, Disney was different. The whole place is one big tourist attraction, which meant double-dosage every morning, in anticipation of the day's events. I also had to take it while flying, which meant I arrived in a sleepy haze and stayed that way for the whole trip, before the manufacturer suddenly discovered that excessively doped-up sleepiness was a bit too much for anyone to handle well, let alone traveling children. Years later, the non-drowsy version offered me much better results. It wasn't like I had a choice about it, either. I went wherever my family decided to go, whether I wanted to or not, and they don't have the best tastes in travel, preferring easy Americanized experiences over authenticity.

With the park in Florida, everyone around me was way more excited than I was. Once I hit the water slides at our hotel, I had no idea why anyone in their right mind would choose to wait for several hours on a line in the brutally hot Floridian sun. We had all the fun we needed at the hotel pool. Why not just stay there? It was designed to funnel tourists through a series of highly choreographed "events" that eliminated pesky things like choices, because the tram to the park was right outside of our hotel. Wasn't that neat? Uh, sure. Like the subway is above ground, but with too much sun and heat. It seemed pointless.

At the time of our big family vacation that cost too much money (hence the drive towards the park everyday, with a reminder about how lucky we were to see other pale flabby tourists from New York wilt sickly in the heat), the biggest sensation was a ride called "Space Mountain"; so secretive in its marketed allure that no one at the park would disclose what the ride actually was. *SPOILER ALERT* It's an indoor rollercoaster, btw. Just like horror movie hits like "The Exorcist", we were given a build-up worthy of hell itself with caution signs like "Don't ride this if you have a heart condition", and warnings to pregnant women about the stress.

It started to freak my mom out, and then me, too. I didn't want to die. I just wanted to go on a friggin' vacation I could have fun with. I was a kid! But, once we'd passed the point of no return, and we needed to pick buddies for the ride, everyone but my dad bailed on sitting with me, in case I threw up during the ride. They debated backsplash, too. My dad just laughed at me the entire time, hitting my arm around the turns, and taking both of his arms out from behind the bar to make it extra scary, in defiance of the signs that cautioned us not to do so repeatedly. The photos of us taken during the ride were disastrous, too. My dad had on an angry red-faced smile while I looked like I was crying, as did my brothers and my mom. I was just glad it was over.

Afterwards, we talked about how the ride was just an indoor rollercoaster in the dark with some flashing lights. The hype had made it seem much scarier than it was, and I felt like I just passed a bravery test. My dad and my brothers were eager to try other scary rides, but me and my mom had enough boyish thrills for the day. We went on a pleasant little choo-choo train that offered a nice slow ride around the park, giving us a chance to see how pretty it was, without whizzing by at a blurry hundred miles an hour. The boys laughed at our "gay kiddie ride", boisterous to go around the mountain again. They'd later complain about the lines they abandoned in their search for more scares, while me and my mom went for ice cream, iced tea, and souvenir shopping. It was the best ride, yet.

Reefer Madness

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness# 

Yesterday afternoon, I watched a popular entertainment program like I usually do, to be somewhat familiar with today's pop stars, because it's hard for a punk rock fan like me to identify with such rabidly followed trends like its the final Wimbledon match or the last game of the World Series. I wasn't exactly a "Tiger Beat" reader* growing up, and I'm pretty sure it would've been banned from the house for being stupid, anyway. My parents can be really egotistical about their educations. Like a lot of bourgeoisie in suburbia, they're still uptight about their relatively recent "escape" from blue collar life in the city; they can be fretfully uptight as a result.

And entertainment news is considered lowbrow t.v. fare, but I am thankful I'm not working their celebrity beats, too. They all look, sound, and act the same to me, anyway. In between the latest "bad boy" arrest was a refreshing live interview with former t.v. host Montel Williams, a proud American military vet and an outspoken advocate for fellow MS sufferers, which speaks to the heart of my family. He spoke about the relevance of medical marijuana to his treatment, and it wasn't the first time I'd heard of it. My mom and I talked about an article I forwarded her about cannabis for her MS, and she didn't reject it as an option outright, which was surprising at first.

When I was growing up, a common attack amongst my mother's family was the demonizing of anything illegal, like smoking pot or underage drinking, that served as an effective cloud cover for their shopping/sugar/pill-popping addictions that had thus far escaped mainstream notice, though times were quickly changing. With the advent of reality t.v. came widely-available media content about mousy fringe types, like the extremely anti-social cat hoarder, or the guy who dresses up in diapers to heal from his abusive childhood. 

Unlike obvious (and legal) social behaviors like smoking and drinking, mental illness became a mainstream topic, thus blowing the lid on their hereto hidden afflictions, especially when my aunt's "dear friend" died from botched surgery as a quick fix to the hoarding habit that placed her in a low-rent apartment around the corner from her late mother's Bronx multi-level townhome that she filled to the roof with junk, floor by floor. Nowhere to run, after that. Still, their semi-public bristling at my lifestyle differences behind their closed doors worked well among their small familial group, where clinically-diagnosed paranoia reigns supreme. Pot smoking became attached to schizophrenia through their compulsive repetition of it, aided and assisted as their pea brains were by so much widely available "newsie" propaganda. 

With the crack craze of the 80s and 90s, lawmakers were desperate to end the murderous rampage from the drug's use that practically bankrupted the city, causing the "white flight" that my mother and her family still rant about, comfortably entrenched as they can be in their casual racism. There were news reports after news reports about "gateway drugs" and "latch-key kids" that my mom and her sisters passive-aggressively sent as news clippings to one another, in a search for the minutely incremental leverage that marks the habitually anti-social. But, they were just following along with the masses.

Of course, me and my friends attending a well-regarded teacher's school in upstate New York knew better about a plant called "MaryJane". Me and my Irish/French-Canadian boyfriend referred to it as "herbe" and "l'herbe" at the same time that classes like "The History of Jazz" and "The History of Rock n' Roll" were filled with students every semester. And therein lie our generational cracking open of the case, forever. I mean, we were taking astrophysics and/or high school SAT's on weed and beer, yo. We already knew what science would eventually catch up to. But one cult movie classic really tied up the loose ends for us, culturally.

Marginalized as African-American people and their works were, no one could deny the artistic relevance of jazz and blues as predominant musical forms that were (and still are) undeniably American. Classes about another American artistic import, the movies, showcased cultural prejudices on a world stage, like the stigma portrayed in the old film "Reefer Madness" turned white audiences against some jazz cat's homegrown stash, versus the huge pharmaceutical megacorporation's factory-manufactured outputs of "Class One Opoids" that are much more addictive, and much more of a gateway to hard street drugs like heroin than some ole weed could ever be. And therein lies the brilliance behind co-opting artistic businesses for mass coercion.

I was impressed by Mr. Williams for being a public proponent for research about alternative delivery methods of medical marijuana that don't open patients up to smoking-related health issues (which my mom and I had already discussed, because she's a pill-popper), as I also noted that he is no longer a daytime t.v. talk show host, either. Still, he represents a celebrity voice in the African-American community that stands by its roots, one rational conversation at a time, now that the real junkies in society are dying off in droves. Finally, GenX gets to share its healing message of peace, love, and understanding through traditional medicine, one patient at a time. "You're welcome" for saving your lives, once again.

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Beat

Hot Shots

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin

Years ago I saw a television story about a storefront in San Francisco that catered to the heroin addicts in their neighborhood. It's a brilliant idea. On the street level are partially walled stalls to give addicts some privacy, while allowing a rotating healthcare worker to check-in with their patients by simply walking past every so often. If they felt someone was in trouble, there's a nurse on staff to give them a life-saving shot that prevents an overdose.

After their patients became comfortable with that level of transparency, they could tour the upper floors of the building with staffers to see their in-care services, like their rehab program and transitional housing. After I saw it, I thought to myself: why aren't we replicating this program in every major city across America? It just made so much sense to me that I knew it was the answer we've been seeking as a society.

And so, it was with great happiness and a shock of recognition that I saw on the local news this week that our fair city here in New York plans to introduce a similar street-front model catering to heroin addiction. Why not? We already have rehab, detox, and disability. Why not spare families and their addicted family members from dying by a bad shot misapplied? This way, we can save a lot of people living on both sides of addiction. It's the way out for you, friends. Take it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervised_injection_site 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_reduction

Stop, Anellotech.

http://www.freshair.org/

Today as I sit at the local library on a public-access computer, the front doors are open to catch some of the cool afternoon breezes, to the sounds of schoolchildren having an outdoor playday with teacher-supervised games and sports, right across the street in the town park. 

I want to keep it that way, and I can't do that if we allow a highly-toxic petrochemical refining plant to take up residence on what was formerly Lederle's site, and then Pfizer's, pharmaceutical companies both: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Cyanamid and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer. 

They'd been having secret town meetings and court appearances in Rockland. We have a "Master Chemist" and a "Master Litigator" on the case, but I want more. Concerned moms are also appreciated.

I want it gone forever, and so I ask you to willingly join me in this. Afterwards, we can collectively heave a huge sigh of relief, breathing in the fresh clean air for a battle well-fought and hard won that is the refuge for the righteous and the just.

Freedom from corruption...that's what we want. Join us. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1595952577299501/

Update: http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/orangetown/2016/01/14/anellotech-cancels-controversial-pearl-river-vent-pipe/78787388/