Posts by Russell Brown
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Got this by email:
I am a high-functioning marijuana user
Following Russell brown's suggestion, I tuned in to last week's native affairs report on the informal marijuana industry and its role in rural Maori communities. As usual, the arguments for decriminalisation stacked up so well that the defenders of prohibition look so stiffly removed from the everyday realities of the drug culture, which they are purported to have great expertise.
Every time I see a quixotic policeman standing proudly by a burning pile of marijuana I laugh knowing that I, as probably being among the marijuana market's largest demographic - young, white male, and despite this policeman's proud display, I will still get marijuana as easily, and for the same price as it has remained for as long as I can remember. I laughed at Senior Sargent Tim Anderson - now there's a haircut you could set your watch to - and imagine what his image of the everyday marijuana user looks like, and what the native affairs report regularly suggested, that is apparently a young, unemployed Maori man. So it is partially to you, Snr Sgt Anderson, that I write this. I am your regular drug user, and I will continue to do so, despite your efforts, until I see fit.
Again i laugh, having almost completely forgotten that marijuana is an illegal drug, and I could be charged for possessing and smoking it, which I regularly do. As a young white drug user, I am bold and brazen in my drug consumption. I don't think, or treat the drug and the use of it, as an illegal act. I smoke on my front porch, in parks, at the beach, about as discretely as your considerate tobacco smoker would. I am high as I pass you on the street, I am high in your favourite supermarket, talking to your teenage daughter as she scans my beer, bananas and pineapple juice.
I truly enjoy my drug use, and consider it, among other introspective experiences like travel, as an important part of growing up. My drug use has supplemented my time as a high achieving postgraduate student and as a young professional.
I am a high-functioning marijuana user (just noticed the pun, hehe). To Sgt Anderson and your quixotic belief in prohibition, here I am, your average marijuana user, and even now as you finally learn this, I continue to smoke with absolute indifference.
Cheers,
Dev
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Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Nora Leggs,
This afternoon in town….. a perfect match for first track new My Bloody Valentine…. soft, washy and blurry……
That's so cool.
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Meanwhile, I found security at Vector a bit stressy even when Neil Young was standing/GA on the ground floor (albeit with two classes of GA) -- clearly it's worse when the place is booked as a seated show, as Robert Plant was last night. Only selling seats at a show like that sucks, and having over-zealous security enforce it is even worse.
By comparison: Elvis Costello at The Civic, where people managed the whole standing up thing themselves.
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Steve Withers,
A local example would be the weeks it used to take the old Post Office to provide a new customer with a phone….all fixed by privatisation…..except it wasn’t. Peter Troughton fixed it pre-sale as CEO while Telecom was an SOE. Then it was sold. But revisionists like to claim that service improved after Telecom was sold.
Testify. I have grown weary of pointing that out. And also pointing out that a hell of a lot of the capital value in the company -- like all exchanges being upgraded with digital links -- happened at the same time. What came next was basically cost-cutting and value-extraction.
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Hard News: Really seeing more of…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
…let’s hope the new foreign owners of South Pacific will keep up this good inclusive work…
SPP has been majority foreign-owned for years, so, happily, there's no reason to think anything will change.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Walking Distance, in reply to Tom Semmens,
I don’t know about this. The days of walling off the doof doof crowd with their it-isn’t-really-music-is-it from the rest are well and truly over. Put them on the main stage, get out the dancing girls, fireworks, lasers and a fuck-off light show and the crowd would go bananas over a Carl Cox.
Don't you think a lakeside groove tent would be sweet too, though? It doesn't have to be a full-noise EDM rave-up. But, like I said, I thought the Chemical Brothers were boring.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Walking Distance, in reply to Barnard,
Big stages in big fields need big crowds, and given a kind of collective taste is becoming less and less common, acts who’ll appeal to a younger crowd & pull massive crowds may not be simple.
It works at the level of Rhythm & Vines, where they're happy to mix up genres. Personally, I think the local BDO should take a leaf from the newer festivals and budget for closer to 20,00 people than 40,000.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Walking Distance, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Well, a younger crowd would – I got the distinct impression that by the time of the final tragic BDO the promoter had no real idea anymore what anyone under 40 might want to see.
I quite enjoyed that day, tragic as it was. Checked out Nero while all the dad-rockers were shuffling around in front of Noel Gallagher. Got very excited when they dropped the 'Blinded By the Lights' remix.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Walking Distance, in reply to Sacha,
The BDO organisers have consistently crapped on that genre compared with any flavour of rawk. Putting Fatboy Slim in a tiny tent next to the supertop is but one example.
A notorious misjudgement, but that was years ago. Dance music 's actually had a good run -- huge Boiler Room bills ever year -- but not so much reggae or hip hop, for which there was rarely a place, physically or philosophically. I think that was where the lineups missed local tastes.
Any reason for optimism that will change under the same management?
Now that "EDM" has gone fucking massive in the US, the market there has come around to something like the fare of traditional Boiler Room headliners like the Chemical Brothers (who I found really tedious live, but whatever). So I guess there'll be one or two dubstep/brostep/EDM stars in 2014. Which is fine. But imagine if there was, like, a little deep house tent for grown-ups ...
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Hard News: Friday Music: Walking Distance, in reply to Tom Semmens,
If they want it to be something different from the Big Day Out, then re-launching and calling it the Big Day Out is a bit silly.
I know what you mean, but i think there's still some value in the brand. "The Big Day Out is coming back" got them a lot of press yesterday, in a way that announcing some other name wouldn't have.