The Zulu Lounge

Over twenty years ago, in May of 1990, Tania and I moved to Long Beach.

At the time we were involved with a group of artists, actors, musicians and short-film makers (who had migrated from Colorado to California together) which we had met through our job working at an interior design company’s warehouse in Costa Mesa/Irvine.

I was writing a lot of poetry, and one day at work I mentioned to Tania and our friend Brian that I needed a place to read my poems out loud, and get some feedback…

So we formed a Wednesday night group called The Zulu Lounge which met in the garage of Brian’s rented house in Irvine to read poetry, share our art, smoke cigarettes and drink.

I Like To Smoke by Jon Christopher – The Zulu Lounge – 1990

Here’s an audio recording of the first poem ever read at The Zulu Lounge. This was one of the “Smoker’s Rights” poems I was writing at the time called I Like To Smoke.

During the middle of this poem I try a flip a cigarette into my mouth…

From The Lounge To Long Beach

When Tania and I moved to Long Beach, so did many of our friends from this group.

Three of the guys from The Zulu Lounge – Brian, Phil and Kirk – moved into an apartment on Broadway which had several bedrooms and, most importantly, access to the roof.

Soon after they moved in they threw a very big house-warming party…

I barely remember it, and I don’t think we have any photos of the night, but I still have the audio-invitation cassette tape and my Fish Pass.

When Cassettes Were King

In 1990 the cassette tape was king. We listened to most of our music on cassette tape.

If you wanted to share some music with a friend, you made a mix-tape and gave it to them… a special kind of gift you listened to over and over again.

That’s probably why I kept this particular cassette tape. It’s both a sound collage of audio theater and an amazing invitation to a party.

An Audio Invitation

Here’s the audio from the cassette tape – It’s about 31 minutes long and very funny, strange and unique souvenir from the late twentieth century.

Included in the cassette invitation was a FREE Pass To See Chilly Willy Talk, and Entrance to The Attic of Doom – Enter and Worship

The Fish Pass

The prime party spot that night (if I remember correctly) was on the roof, which required a special Fish Pass – which we were suppose to share. I think the idea was to keep the number of people on the roof limited…

As you can see I kept mine. Here’s the photo I took of it today…

Note: If you have any photos from this party, please contact me so I can add them to this page…

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Tania and I went to the rally at the Federal Court Building in downtown Los Angeles for Charles C. Lynch and for the cause of Medical Marijuana this afternoon.

I had emailed Charles to let him know we going to be there and bringing buttons to give away. The official name for the rally was “Hope for Change” – but I finished hoping on Nov. 5th – Now I’m standing up, as are many others, so we get real change that helps us as patients.

I think our fear and silence has let this nonsense go on for too long. It’s true that some of us will take a hit for standing up, but we’ll all lose if no one stands up. I really believe in medical marijuana, I really believe that marijuana is a gift from God.

I also feel like I have nothing more to say that can add to the debate over marijuana use. Over the last 26 years I’ve heard just about every argument on both sides, and frankly, I’m just tired of it… The truth has been said over and over and ignorance still rules the day.

Here’s some photos that Tania took today at the rally…

Today’s Rally:

The injustice is that Charles C. Lynch, a good community business man, is having to go through this whole stupid trial and everything else just because he choose to be compassionate, stepped forward and helped provided relief for numerous MMJ patients in his area.

But the local sheriff who does not like marijuana being legal for people with chronic illnesses, and apparently believes his opinion matters more than the law and the state constitution he’s sworn to uphold, so he called the DEA in to try and ruin this man’s life…

Here’s a bit from the MPP’s newsletter about Charles’ case:

Charles Lynch operated a medical marijuana dispensing collective in Morro Bay, Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers, that helped more than 2,000 seriously ill patients obtain their medicine in a legal, clean, and safe environment. In March 2007, the facility was raided, and federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents later arrested and charged Charles with five counts of marijuana-related federal crimes.

Charles not only complied with California’s long-standing medical marijuana laws, he was operating under a license issued by the City of Morro Bay and was a well-respected member of the local community. Nevertheless, Charles was treated like a common criminal under draconian federal marijuana laws, and the county sheriff even cooperated with the subversion of state law.

The jury in Charles’ trial was not allowed to hear any information relating to medical marijuana and his compliance with state law. Consequently, on August 5, 2008, Charles was found guilty on all counts.

While President Obama has pledged to end the raids on state-legal medical marijuana providers, that does little to help Charles. He is one several providers still facing federal charges or sentencing from raids during the Bush administration. His sentencing is set for March 23, and if the judge doesn’t show discretion because of Charles’ status under state law he could end up spending the rest of his life in prison.

I made a bunch of buttons over the weekend for the rally that look like this…

I quickly gave away all 120-150 buttons and got to walk around, talk to a few folks… I haven’t been feeling so great (the flu – almost over it now…) so we cut out after a bit. I just wanted everyone to have a souvenir of a moment, a moment when we know we stood for this movement, we stood for Charles, stood for justice, we stood for change…

For those that got a button today – Wear it proudly, proud that you stood up, proud that you’re part of the change, and not just talking about it…and I hope it brings a smile to your face when you a digging through a box of old stuff 20 years from now and find this little button and you remember those crazy days back when marijuana was illegal…

A movement isn’t just a one day event, but a series of steps to reach a goal.

Help Charles C. Lynch reach the goal of staying out of prison and getting back to his life.

Visit his website: (http://www.friendsofccl.com/) and send him a message of support today. On his site are listed a number of ways you can help. On March 23rd he gets sentenced…

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I have been one busy human being, and much goodness is in the works from onehumanbeing.com in the weeks ahead…

As you can see from the picture above – this blog is getting a redesign, both to speed up the page loading and make the site easier to understand, navigate, and all-around more enjoyable. I think of myself as a blogging rookie this year – but I’m getting this thing figured out.

As I’ve been working, a theme and approach to my work has surfaced after 11 or so years of meditating on this idea: Share Your Truth.

I first felt the compulsion of this idea in March of 1998, and have spent a long time growing out of who I was and into the skin of this idea… All things in the fullness of time.

As we begin 2009 I feel compelled, an urging from every creative part of me to orient on this idea…

I wasn’t expecting to move this way – I have a whole other agenda prepared and ready to build… but that is the way of the Spirit, and I am just the wind… going where the pressures of the Spirit move me.

On the plate, but out-of-view right now, are the following site updates:

• onehumanbeing.com – better organization and navigation.

• The MMJ Project – complete make-over to accomplish goals I originally started with (more on that when the redesign is ready, but you can go peek at it if you like…) including medical marijuana graphics and other souvenirs of the project available for download (through Creative Commons licensing) and merchandise to purchase through CafePress.

• The Medical Marijuana Lists – a major piece of work from The MMJ Project, very big project site underway – anticipated launch date is January 31, 2009

Sign-up for the newsletter and get updated when it’s all good to go. Until then… Best of health, Jon, onehumanbeing

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Post tags: blog, compulsion, creative commons, fullness of time, goodness, health, images, launch, long time, medical marijuana, page loading, peek, postings, souvenirs, time line, truth, way of the spirit