Marijuana's Going Legal--and Nobody's Raising a Fuss

Originally published in "Brooklyn Daily Eagle"

 

By Raanan Geberer

Brooklyn Daily Eagle
 

This week, Governor Cuomo is expected to announce a plan to introduce legal medical marijuana in New York State.

Unlike some states, where marijuana can be prescribed for almost any minor condition (and many dispensers undoubtedly just wink at this prohibition), medical marijuana in New York is expected to be only available for serious conditions such as glaucoma and cancer. It will also be dispensed only at a select number of hospitals, rather than “dispensaries” like those in states like California, which often bear provocative names like “The Green Light District.”

Here in Brooklyn, our new district attorney, Kenneth Thompson, has said his office will not prosecute arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana, but will just give them non-criminal fines. "Too many young people are being arrested for low-level drug charges that leave a permanent stain on their records for what should be a violation," Thompson said.

Getting back to medical marijuana, 20 states have now legalized it in some form or other. More remarkably, two states – Colorado and Washington  -- have passed laws legalizing recreational marijuana. The initiative is being delayed a few months in Washington, but in Colorado, a reported $1 million in business was done at about 35 “pot shops” during the state’s first day of legal marijuana. One such store, in Boulder, also offers items like “Sweet Mary Jane Crackers,” “Heavenly Honey Lemon Chill Pills” and “Twirling Hippy Cheesecakes.” Maybe the latter item can give Junior’s a run for its money.

The most remarkable thing, however, is that these wide-ranging changes aren’t setting the world on fire. No one’s turning cartwheels in the street. Conversely, no one’s warning that legal marijuana will lead to heroin and crack addiction.

Imagine if marijuana, legal or otherwise, had become legalized in the ’70s! What a change it would have been! Radio stations would have been playing songs like “Panama Red” and “One Toke Over the Line” night and day. People dressed in tie-dyed shirts and walking like Mister Natural would be “toking up” in public. Chcech and Chong, and a thousand other comedians, would have been making “weed” jokes on late-night TV. “High Times” would have sold out every copy.

What do we have today? There are few modern equivalents to Cheech and Chong or the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour’s“Take a Little Tea with Goldie.” Smoking marijuana isn’t considered “deliciously naughty” anymore. Much of this can be blamed on the Reagan administration, which included marijuana in its “War on Drugs” along with cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. Whereas beforehand, students smoked marijuana openly at college concerts and in their dorm rooms with the doors wide open, this attitude forced marijuana indoors. While few people share those attitudes nowadays, the damage was done.

For the record, I smoked marijuana, mainly at parties, but didn’t think much of it. To me, it was like having one glass of beer – something with little effect. Maybe the big mystique of marijuana was that it helped to give the younger generation a sense of identity. “They” drank Scotch and martinis, but “we” smoked marijuana (and drank sweet, cheap wines like Boone’s Farm Apple). Now, that distinction has been removed. Parents of one of today’s college students, upon learning that their son or daughter smoked a joint, are likely to just shrug their shoulders.

Legal marijuana is arriving, fast and furious. Too bad they took the fun out of it!

 

Jean Shepherd and `A Christmas Story'

Originally printed in "Brookyn Daily Eagle"

It’s Christmas time, and once again we’re treated to showings of the holiday favorite “A Christmas Story.” The film has become so much a classic that it’s been turned into a Broadway play, and the house in Cleveland that was used as the Parker family’s house has been turned into a museum. Characters like The Old Man, bully Scott Farkas and the hillbilly Bumpus family, not to mention inanimate objects like the leg lamp, have become part of American folklore.

Lost in the shuffle, however, has been the author and narrator of the story—Jean Shepherd. Many of the millions of people who have seen the film, perhaps most, are only familiar with him through “A Christmas Story.” And that’s sad, because as good as it is, it only represents a small portion of Shepherd’s work.

Jean Shepherd was born in the early 1920s and grew up in Hammond, Indiana (called “Hohman, Indiana” in the film). The late Eagle columnist Dennis Holt, who lived there during part of his youth, knew Shepherd and his friends, although they were older than him. While the film takes place around 1940, the real events upon which it is based took place about seven or eight years earlier.

Like most men of his generation, Shepherd served in the military during World War II (his Signal Corps stories have recently been collected as “Shep’s Army”). Afterward, he drifted into TV and radio, but he didn’t become famous until the mid-1950s, when he began broadcasting one of the first talk shows on WOR-AM. About half of his show was dedicated to tales of his Indiana childhood and his Army days. The rest consisted on his observations of the passing scene. He commented on advertising, popular music (he loved jazz, disliked rock), sexual mores, suburbia, all-night diners, beer and almost everything else. He avoided politics, but at times he “got serious,” as he did after JFK’s assassination and again after Martin Luther King’s assassination. In between it all, he played hokey Dixieland jazz songs, accompanying them on the kazoo and Jew’s harp, and recited old-time folk poetry like “The Shooting of Dan McGrew.”

In one of his best-known pranks, he began to talk about a non-existent sexy book, “I, Libertine,” supposedly written in the 18^th century. He told his listeners to ask for it in bookstores. Eventually, the demand was so great that a publisher hired several authors (including Shepherd himself) to ghost-write the book.

Shepherd continued on, broadcasting every weekday at 10:15 p.m. and on Saturday nights from the Limelight in Greenwich Village. Thousands of young New Yorkers listened to Shep on their transistor radios under their pillows when their parents thought they were asleep. In 1977, he quit his radio gig. By this time, he was becoming known nationally. He wrote stories for Playboy and published several short-story collections. He also had a public television show, “Jean Shepherd’s America,” in which he visited different parts of the country. There was even an unsuccessful follow-up to “A Christmas Story,” called “My Summer Story.”

Shep died in 1999. After his death, his dark side was discovered: He had two children from an early marriage, neither of which he had seen for 30 years. In fact, he often denied that he had children at all. Still, I prefer to celebrate his contributions to American culture. Quoting Shep’s most famous catch phrase, I proclaim to everybody concerned, “Excelsior, you fatheads!”

The Singing Dentist of Bensonhurst

By Raanan Geberer


"When you begin/Begin the beguine/It brings back the night/Of tropical splendor....”

Dr. Pearlman sang as he looked into Rob’s mouth and started poking around, the curbed probe in one hand, the tiny mirror in the other. Ever since Rob had moved to Brooklyn last year, in 1987, his father had tried to get him to see Dr. Pearlman as a dentist because Dr. Pearlman was a cousin and had grown up with his father in the East Bronx, and finally, here he was. Dr. Pearlman’s office was on the second floor of a rundown two-story building on a nondescript commercial street in Bensonhurst whose only redeeming feature was the Italian bakery next door. You walked down a long, narrow hallway to get to Dr. Pearlman’s office.

“A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H/ I got a gal in Kalamazoo/Don’t want to boast but I know she’s the toast/of Kalamazoo...”

Rob had never heard of a singing dentist before. Not only does he sing, he thought, but he seems to sing only the songs of his own era, which would be the late 1930s and early ’40s. It’s incredible that this guy is still practicing, he thought. He must be in his late 60s, past retirement age. He idly glanced at the wall – here was a diploma from “New York University Dental School, June 1948.” Probably went to dental school on the G.I. Bill, he thought. Suddenly, he became alarmed when Dr. Pearlman picked up a drill.

“What are you doing with that drill? Aren’t you going to give me an anesthetic or an injection?”

“Well, the X-rays show that the cavity is very small and very near the surface, so we don’t need it. Open your mouth—you’re so good, you’re the best, you’re the champ. Here it comes. I’m not lazy!

`I got spurs that jingle jangle jingle/As we go merrily along/And they say, ain’cha glad you’re single/And that song it ain’t too far from wrong’ ...You’re doing great! Don’t worry about anything. I’m the master! ...

"`In ‘76 the sky was red/Thunder rumbling overhead/King George couldn’t sleep in his bed/And on that morn/Uncle Sam was born’ ... You’re so good! Okay, rinse out your mouth!”

Rob bent over, grabbed a paper cup and rinsed his mouth. He watched the blood going down the drain. He had hardly felt anything. “There! That wasn’t so hard, was it? “ Dr. Pearlman asked. “I’m gonna do the filling now! You know, your father did some amazing, heroic things! Like the time he ran into the battlefield and carried the wounded lieutenant on his back to safety! They were gonna give him a medal for that, but, you know how it is!”

Rob had never heard that story before. Then again, his father rarely talked about his past. He was going to ask another question when....

“OK, we’re gonna put in the filling material next. Here it comes! Stay still! I’m not lazy!

"`Moon over Miami/Shine on as we begin/A dream or two that may come true/As the tide comes in.......’

"Okay, just a little bit more. Just stay still. You’re the best! ... Bor’chu es adonai hamvoroch/Boruch atoh adonoi hamvoroch leolom voed/Boruch atoh adonoi/Eloheynoo melech ha’olam' ... OK, we’re done here, kid!”

“I heard you singing that Hebrew brocho,” Rob said, referring to the blessing over the Torah that Dr. Pearlman had just intoned. “Wouldn’t those Hasidim I saw in the waiting room object if you sang that when they were here?”

“Fuhgedaboutit!” Dr. Pearlman responded, cheery as ever. “Don’t worry about them. They got nothin’ to say! OK, see you next time?”

“What should I pay?”

“Don’t pay anything! ‘’Cause you’re a relative, I’ll fix the insurance form so the price will be very high, so what they give me will cover what you should pay!”

“You don’t have a secretary?”

“Naah! I used to have a secretary, but if I did now, I’d have to charge you guys more! OK, kid! Give your regards to my father .....NEXT!!!”

Bill Cosby's Right: Let's Tone Down Profanity

Originally published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle

On a recent episode of the Jon Stewart Show, Bill Cosby surprised host Jon Stewart, known for using four-letter words (which are bleeped out), by asking him to curb his use of profanity. He mentioned that when he was young, when someone said a four-letter word, it was usually a prelude to a fight. Stewart, who was taken aback, asked whether Cosby and Richard Pryor hadn’t used four-letter words on stage when they were starting out. Cosby said no, because there were always cops around.

I plead guilty to using the “f-word” (usually when I’m angry). But many people use it to describe almost anything and everything, as an adjective, adverb, noun and verb. While it is surely one of the oldest words in the English language, its use in show business (with a few exceptions, such as the odd 1938 recording of “Old Man Mose” by the Eddie Duchin Orchestra) was pioneered by comedian Lenny Bruce in the 1960s. Bruce was a comic genius, and his intentions were certainly commendable: he wanted to do away with hypocrisy and portray daily life honestly.

But in doing so, Bruce opened a can of worms. What he was doing went way over most people’s heads. Profanity became a lazy way of getting cheap laughs. If you don’t believe me, go into any comedy club in the country. Bruce was about social commentary, but that social commentary has degenerated into the insulting shock humor of Howard Stern.

Fifty, sixty years ago, we were a nation of rules: open the door for a lady, don’t wear your hat indoors, get up from a subway seat to let an older person sit down, call an older person “sir.”  Those rules have disappeared. Again, in an effort to do away with hypocrisy, the hippies of the 1960s sought to do abolish the old rules. They thought they would replace the authoritarian society of the 1950s with one based on communal values, but that never happened. Instead, what eventually replaced it was one of extreme individualism, of sneering at others who are less successful. The hippies believed in free sexuality as an expression of honesty, but what we have today is free sexuality as a way to sell cars or soft drinks. I certainly don’t want to go back to the society of the 1950s, when James Joyce was banned. But someone like Miley Cyrus is no James Joyce.

Some people might say, “Why don’t you criticize the real problems of society, rather than someone dancing naked on stage?” But to me, these problems are part of the same bag.

On one side of the coin, we have corruption in government, cheating on Wall Street, huge corporations like Walmart paying subsistence wages, politicians refusing to cooperate with their colleagues across the aisle, manufacturers shipping what had been American jobs overseas, people not caring about the homeless and the poor.

On the other, we have movie stars gyrating like only porn stars did a few decades ago, violent gangster rap, a record number of divorces, a record number of children being born out of wedlock, kids disrespecting teachers, and, yes, the constant use of four-letter words in public.

Yes, these are two sides of the same coin. And that coin is the degeneration of American society into one ruled completely by self-gratification and selfishness.

A Hospital Is More Than a Money Drain

Originally Published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle

This newspaper has been faithfully chronicling the ins and outs of the Long Island College Hospital (LICH) and, to a lesser extent, the Interfaith Hospital controversies. Turning our attention to Manhattan, we’re sure most readers are also familiar with the St. Vincent’s Hospital conflict of several years ago.

Implicit in all these controversies, however, is the idea that a hospital is nothing but an endless money drain. There’s some truth to this—many patients are on Medicare or Medicaid. When funds are cut, the hospitals suffer. But hospitals indirectly contribute large amounts of money to the community at large, and when a hospital closes, the entire community suffers as well.

Let’s take hospital beds. Beds require linen, pillows, and so on. The company that supplies linen to the hospital probably employs many people and pays a good deal of money in taxes. Without the hospital as a client, that company may have to lay off employees. It will also pay fewer taxes, thus depriving the government of much-needed tax revenue.

Let’s also take food. Every hospital has a cafeteria and also delivers food directly to patients in their rooms. Food concessionaires also hire employers, pay taxes, and purchase large amounts of food from suppliers. No cafeteria, no cafeteria employees. In a normal, healthy economy, these employees would find new jobs in a few weeks. But we’re not living in a healthy economy.

Same thing for the various coffee shops, restaurants and bars around a hospital. Many of these places mainly cater to hospital employees and visitors. If there’s suddenly no hospital, then half of these places may very well close. Their former employees will then spend less money at the supermarket and other local stores, sending negative waves through the local economy.

Transportation? Private car services near hospitals also rely on hospital visitors for much of their trade. If there’s no hospital, there will be fewer trips. Ultimately, fewer cars will be needed.

In macroeconomics, all of this is known, appropriately, as the “ripple effect.” This effect is worse when a hospital is the major employer in a neighborhood, as Long Island College Hospital probably is in Cobble Hill. As bad as the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital was, the total economy of Greenwich Village wasn’t impacted that much because the West Village is jumping with hundreds of bars, clubs and souvenir shops. Closing LICH and Interfaith would hurt the areas surrounding these institutions much more.

The presence of a hospital can even cut down on crime. No one wants to mug a passer-by or sell drugs across the street from a hospital because people are constantly coming and going. But once a hospital closes and all you have are some big, empty buildings, the criminal element could see this as a green light to move in.

To sum up, hospitals aren’t just annoying, although necessary, institutions that cost millions of dollars. They generate lots of money into the local economy through purchases, services for visitors, businesses that cater to employees and much more. They also help keep the neighborhood safer. Hospitals don’t just generate physical health – they generate economic health, as well.

For More Riders, Make Amtrak Travel Into an Adventure

Originally in Brooklyn Daily Eagle 

In the cost-cutting frenzy that is sweeping Washington, Amtrak is a prime target. Contrary to what many people think, Amtrak is not an arm of the government – like the Postal Service, it is a separate corporation created by legislation, with some federal and state input and funding. It’s safe to say that if passenger rail had stayed profitable in the U.S. in the 1950s and ’60s, Amtrak would not have been created.

The most recent threat to Amtrak service comes in the Midwest, where Indiana has balked about continuing to fund the Hoosier Express linking Indianapolis and Chicago. And because Amtrak often shares its route with private freight railroads, performance on many lines is “iffy.” For example, I once waited for an hour and a half in Amherst, Mass., for a train to New York. When I called the Amtrak help number, I was told that our train had to wait until a huge freight train cleared the tracks.

Despite  the problems, Amtrak’s ridership is growing rapidly. According to a Brookings Institute report that was released this year, Amtrak went from carrying 20.1 million riders in 1997 to 31.2 million today. However, the Boston-to-Washington segment provides 44 percent of the traffic for the entire system (it also provides enough of a surplus to pay for most of Amtrak’s other short routes). Some of Amtrak’s long-distance routes, according to the study, only operate at about 20 percent of capacity. Indeed, the great majority of Amtrak’s ridership increase comes from people who travel less than 400 miles.

Some politicians have talked about cutting Amtrak down to its highly-traveled East Coast and, to a lesser extent, West Coast corridors. However, before we try that, maybe we should take a look at the way Amtrak is promoted.

Government proponents of Amtrak say that it costs less per person to subsidize passenger rail than it does to subsidize bus lines, that passenger rail creates less pollution, that it promotes “green” energy, and that if Europe and Japan can do it, so why can’t we?

While these arguments all have merit, they’re all somewhat abstract and won’t necessarily move the average American. Many people have never been to Europe or Japan, don’t care about green energy, and don’t spend time thinking about pollution unless it hits their immediate neighborhood.

If you want more people to take Amtrak, focus on the train experience itself. Show people that it’s much more comfortable to travel by Amtrak than by bus, that you can move around in a way you can’t on a long-distance bus, that you can look out the window at scenic sights such as the Rockies like you can’t on a plane, and that you can’t get food on a bus or (nowadays) a plane—but you can on Amtrak. Tell them that being in the train stations, many of which are historic buildings, is a pleasing experience, unlike the seedy atmosphere you find in many bus stations and the confusion you find at airports.

Make rail travel itself into an adventure. If you do so, you’ll definitely increase ridership.

Post Mortem: Anthony Weiner

Originally published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle

In the aftermath of the recent Democratic mayoral primary, some (although not a lot) of attention was paid to the concession speech of former Brooklyn-Queens Congressman Anthony Weiner. He maintained that he had the most innovative ideas of the campaign, but that he was an “imperfect messenger.” Perhaps to prove this point, he was photographed “giving the finger” to a reporter.

The strange thing is that Weiner may have been right about his election platform. A look at his usually-ignored “Keys to the City” reveals some strikingly innovative, far-reaching ideas. Here are some of them:

·        A single-payer health plan for the uninsured in New York City. Consider this—several states, such as Vermont and Massachusetts, have their own health care plans. New York City has more people than the entire state of Vermont.

·        Push mold elimination requests to the front of maintenance requests for housing projects. Mold is as toxic today as lead paint was yesterday.

·        Conduct an air rights audit for New York City properties, such as schools and police stations. Taking advantage of unused air rights could add millions to the city treasury.

·        Create a new Mitchell-Lama-type program to build housing for the middle class similar to the well-known program of the 1960s. Since Mayor Bloomberg took office, it seems that residential construction is done either for the well-to-do or for low-income people (the latter often proving a bonanza for politically connected non-profits).

·        Encourage the Housing Authority to buy energy-efficient lights, boilers and windows that will pay for themselves in energy costs and save untold amounts in repairs and day-to-day maintenance.

·        End arrests for small amounts of marijuana that take officers’ attention away from fighting serious crime. The main reason these laws are on the books is so that officers can show their superiors how many “collars” they made.

·        Give incentives for experienced teachers who choose to teach in low-income schools. Nowadays, most teachers who work in these schools are beginners who are waiting to get tenure so they can transfer out.

·        Eliminate city income taxes for New Yorkers who make $40,000 or less. This, Weiner said, will cost the city only “one half of one percent of the total budget, while generating hundreds of dollars in savings for middle-class and struggling New Yorkers.”

·        Put cab stands for yellow cabs in every borough. This would make it easier for yellow cabs to find fares in the outer boroughs and would attract more of them to Brooklyn, the Bronx, etc.

·         Institute “lead time” for pedestrians at traffic lights, giving them a few seconds of walking time before cars start to move. This would be a godsend to seniors who can’t walk fast.

·         Give incentives to cab fleet owners who choose hybrid or other energy-efficient cabs, rather than insisting that all cabbies drive the same vehicle (the “Taxi of Tomorrow”).

·         Give a bonus to families on food stamps who buy fresh fruits and vegetables, rather than penalizing those who buy unhealthy foods.

While some of these ideas may already be in Mr. de Blasio’s, Mr. Thompson’s or Mr. Lhota’s playbook, others are probably unique to Mr. Weiner. Just because Weiner’s personal behavior is suspect doesn’t mean his ideas aren’t worthwhile. If some of them are put into action, they, rather than the “Carlos Danger” scandal, could become Anthony Weiner’s most lasting legacy.