When JOB came to town…

Comments

1. Lindsay says

   November 20, 2008 at 12:06 pm

   JOB,

   Have already forwarded like mad.

   Second sentence is among your best ever.

   Reply
2. job says

   November 20, 2008 at 8:54 pm

   Lindsay,

   Thanks for the kind words and deeds – I have to admit, it was the sentence which told me “you can write this thing – and even have fun doing it.” Which I did, helped along tremendously, I might add, by the fabulous (as in legendary, epic and mythical all rolled into one) hospitality – and open bar – of the Lickona household.

   Cheers in particular to Mrs. Lickona for putting up with a quasi-bachelor for two weeks and some.

   But getting back to the open bar business, well….

   Let’s just say the governors were off the stock car…

   As in, no need to draft, as it were…

   Winter is already here in the naughty, NYT finger-wagged tavern-soaked, woefully blue state of Wisconsin. San Diego remains a small ember to fan every once in a while through the furious and snot-freezing winds that thread my beard as I trounce out to the goat pen…

   I have been conquered (once again) by…Well, never mind.

   JOB

   Reply
3. cubeland mystic says

   November 21, 2008 at 5:52 am

   herblore

   Reply
4. notrelatedtoted says

   November 21, 2008 at 7:46 am

   “Steve’s not here, man.”

   I’ve never smoked pot and don’t intend to start, but I’m wondering why they don’t just make it legal already.

   Reply
5. j. christian says

   November 21, 2008 at 11:30 am

   JOB,

   Your article makes reference to “gay culture,” which is always a controversial term. Would you also admit to the existence of a “pot culture?” And if so, is there any problem with a person self-identifying with either of these cultures? I mean, such as raising pot-smoking to the level of sacrament or something?

   I’ve never done investigative journalism on medical marijuana, but for every Rudy Reyes it seems like there are a dozen guys in the plaid shorts. I could be wrong, but I fear that “medical marijuana” is a loophole the size of the “medical exception for the mother” loophole.

   Reply
6. j. christian says

   November 21, 2008 at 11:31 am

   Oh, post script: Really well written, by the way.

   Reply
7. job says

   November 21, 2008 at 2:13 pm

   J. Christian,

   If by “culture” you mean “what people generally and usually do” then, sure, I think you could say that there is both a gay culture (they do certain things which set them apart – and not just sodomy, by the way. They tend to dress a certain way; act a certain way; court one another in a certain way…) I also think there is a marijuana culture – a culture which, I noticed in my travels, did more harm than good for the medi pot efforts.

   Let’s put it this way – as I did to a few of the individuals in my story – if you’re trying to get in the henhouse just for the eggs, don’t bring foxes and weasels along with you to pursuade the farmer you’re only interested in the eggs. Chances are he’s not going to be convinced.

   If the genuine med pot users (and you’re right, I think loopholes are there – but as Dudley says, that’s when the law should take it up with the pot doctors, not with the patient as such) separated themselves from the “pot culture” they might make more headway – or they might not. There might not be enough of them in that case to make a difference.

   Overall, I’d have to say I’m more sympathetic to the med pot users than not. My mother – who’s not exactly Joan Baez – thinks that pot (not marinol, which is synthetic THC and causes more problems than it solves) is just what the doctor ordered for cancer patients.

   As for whether I think there’s a problem with identifying with either culture. Well, I don’t know: I think they’re both part of the tailings of our falling empire. I’d say building a culture around sodomy on the one hand and the intentional loss of one’s faculties through organic drug use, on the other, are both pretty base, when it comes right down to it. But in a certain sense, that’s immaterial.

   I really had different fish to fry in my story – I wasn’t trying to castigate or recriminate; merely provide an anatomy of the issue.

   JOB

   Reply
8. j. christian says

   November 21, 2008 at 3:50 pm

   JOB,

   Yeah, I could tell what you were trying to do, and I think you pulled it off quite well, actually.

   I’m not an animist, so I don’t think evil inheres in an object itself. If there’s a role for medical marijuana and it can be packaged in a delivery system such as the one you described for Rudy, then I’m all for it. How you get the eggs without letting the weasels in, I dunno. I have my own reasons for being a little sensitive to substance abuse and the policy issues surrounding it.

   Reply
9. job says

   November 22, 2008 at 4:02 pm

   J. Christian,

   Thanks again. Glad you liked the story.

   Oh, and also, I don’t randomly invoke my mother as auctoritas – I meant to add that she’s an RN who works with an oncology unit.

   (As Thomas says, authority is the weakest form of argument (“For as Boethius says…”)).

   I happened to mention to her one day on the phone that I was writing a story on med pot and she gave me a good five minutes of food for thought…

   I wish I could have quoted her – but she’d have to move to San Diego – which I don’t see her doing – Jersey City born, the ‘burbs are about as far as she wanders from the clan, God love her!

   JOB

   Reply