And the media item today most likely to both help generate interest in a drug previously not too popular and to also most likely speed up changes in its legal status is the front page article in Wednesday June 27th's San Francisco Chronicle about the Mexican "sacred weed" Salvia Divinorum with a bold heading about the LEGAL, INTENSE, HALLUCINOGEN that reportedly "when chewed or smoked causes intense hallucinations comparable to LSD or "magic mushrooms"" and "is available all over the Bay Area, mostly in smoke shops and herbal stores.It's also sold over the Internet. For $15 to $50 a hit users get high that sends them into a dreamlike state for anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or two. The article appears online under the heading "The Legal Hallucinogen" at sfgate. My guess is that it will all sound most appealing to those looking for a new high (except for the $50 a hit part !!!!) especially the fact it is still legal. Just like LSD was up until 40 years ago - up until the end of the Summer of Love.
The Chronicle article goes on to mention how many videos of folks gettin' twisted on this short but intense high drug are being posted on YouTube. This fact will no doubt send the curious (like myself) to search on YouTube where my quick SEARCH this morning on YouTube search under "Salvia divinorum" netted a total of 173 video postings including "Her Salvia Divinorum Trip 20 X First Time" - a homemade video of a girl getting wasted and being filmed by her male friend.
If you turn on your favorite radio station or webcast Tuesday, June 26th, and you are surprised to hear nothing but dead-air, pure silence - be forewarned that it will not be technical difficulties you're experiencing. Rather it will most likely be that your favorite webcast or radio station is participating in the national planned "day of silence" -in protest of the new webcasting rates that look likely to go into effect within three weeks and, if so, will have serious consequences on streaming music online. As you already know the future of Internet radio is in immediate danger because royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). So in protest traditional and online radio stations are protesting by going silent. In addition to the 'silent-treatment' protest some stations around the country, including WFMU in Jersey City, will make their protest by not going silent, but rather by boycotting all RIAA/Sound Exchange music and only playing indie artists outside the RIAA governed titles. 
events planned to help raise awareness including one in San Francisco (home of numerous webcasters including the wonderful electronic music , "extremely independent" 
So I spent this past Thursday, June 21st - the longest day of the year, in Hollywood. And it was just one of those perfect days. You know, one of those days you have when everything goes just perfectly? Being the first day of summer, I guess, the weather could not have been more desirable: sunny and warm but never too hot, and certainly not a trace of that smog that is so often unfairly associated with LA. But besides the weather, every single person I encountered that day in Hollywood was genuinely warm and friendly and a pleasure to be around. Even the tragic bums along Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards all seemed to have vanished for the day. Not one person asked me for money all day. The opposite happened in fact: not once but twice glancing down at the pavement I found money - a quarter on Vine and a crisp new dollar bill blowing on Sunset. Damn! There really is gold on the streets here, I thought. What a perfect day. As I happily walked I couldn't help but remember in my head all of the songs about Hollywood and LA (there is even a 
for my trip down from the Bay for the day) I ran into Amoebite Kara who was walking her cute and affectionate little dog. The last time I was down in LA - several months previously - she had just gotten the miniature pooch who she had rescued by adopting from an unfortunate homeless woman who could no longer take care of her pet. At Amoeba Music that day I spent the day hanging out and meeting many Amoebites for the first time like Irene (who works in the office and was sporting a cool Virgin Prunes t-shirt) and some that I knew from before like KP, Tim Ranow, and Ilene. It was about my sixth trip to Amoeba Hollywood since it opened and I tell you the cavernous store never fails to amaze me. It is truly a music fiend's dream! And despite the good amount of time I spent digging in the crates of the endless rows and rows and sections and sections of music, I still only barely scratched the surface of the store's seemingly never ending inventory.
The new compilation "WAR II (the turd hunt continues...)" - the sequel to the 2003 anti-war compilation "
broadcasting over the Bay Area (its signal is pretty good) with quality radio - including lots of live studio performances. This will be the second time the DJs of Mass Destruction perform on DJ Trinity's show. In fact we turned part of the last KFJC performance (2003 release party for "WAR: If it feels good do it") into a music video - featuring Bush/War footage mixed with the KFJC performance. The video originally appeared on the enhanced CD section of the 2CD Amoeba Music Compilation Vol. V 2 set. This video, which was produced by 
Hip Hop Slam's Nausea Girl, can be viewed below. The video at top of this page, produced by ALF, was made for the new WAR II: the turd hunt continues. The audio track for this video is the opening track on the 14-track new WAR II CD.
Murder is one those words that I hear everyday and have for years and years and years - to the point, I fully admit, that I have become totally desensitized to its real meaning. Yep to me, the more I hear the word murder and especially the more I read it in yet another newspaper report, the more and more detached I seem to become from it. It has lost its initial intended meaning to me. In fact right now as I type this and just think of the word MURDER in my head, I cannot help but hear the refrain from that classic 1993 dancehall reggae hit by Chaka Demus & Pliers (Murder She Wrote) echoing happily in my skull "murder she wrote, nah nahnah, murrrrder she wrote." So to me murder or that six letter word
spelt backwards - redrum (popularized by The Shining) is just another empty meaningless word or even worse, alternately it is a sexy catch-phrase, repeated in songs I hum, the theme of entertaining movies I watch, video games I play, books I read, and juicy headlines in morning newspapers I read as I sip my comforting coffee. So ultimately murder to me (and maybe to you too?) is just another hollow disposable word - nothing more, nothing less. Unless, unless, that is, of course, that the word "murder" is directly connected to me personally or to someone close to me. 
So as I sat on the BART the other morning reading a small short article in the Bay Area section of the San Francisco Chronicle under the heading "Two Murders In Oakland Over The Weekend" about a couple of unrelated fatal street shootings (one of them "gang related") to be totally honest - it barely registered in my consciousness - just the same ol, same ol to this jaded soul. Until, that is, the location of one of the murders jumped off the page at me ("Fairview Ave. in the 100 block, north of Lake Merrit"). Damn! I realized that this was directly outside the apartment buidling where I stay. Later that day from talking to folks in the immediate East Bay neighborhood I found out all the killing's tragic details: that the murder happened on Friday night at 9:25PM. That it took place directly opposite the church (ironically) when a car screeched to a halt in the middle of the street with two guys audibly arguing inside. Both got out, still arguing loudly, and one shot the other nine times before hopping back into the driver's seat to speed away leaving the body of a 29 year old man bleeding to death on that chilly Oakland night. 