Memories Are Made of This

Abolafia. That unusual surname on a mailing list of people who knew or claimed some connection to the late Paul Krassner triggered a memory of the easiest money I ever made (for my boss) as a detective. It was in 1978. The client was a woman Back East who urgently wanted us to locate a man named Louis Abolafia. She said that he had “not been seen” since his 1968 run for president as the Nudist Party candidate. (His slogan had been “I have nothing to hide.”) I found him in the San Francisco phonebook. The client was billed $1,000.

The December 5 New York Times “Well” column by Caroline Hopkins was about forgetting. “‘Forgetfulness is usually normal,’ said Dr. Sharon Sha, a professor of neurology at Stanford University. When we blank on information we just learned or thoughts we just had, it’s typically because our brains didn’t save them as long-term memories to begin with.” (And all these years I thought it was Cannabis Indica!)

“‘When going about your daily life, your brain holds information in a temporary state called working memory,’ said David Gallo, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago... Most people can only hold about four or five thoughts or tasks in their working memories at a time, Dr. Gallo said. But unless those thoughts go through a brain process called encoding, they won’t be saved permanently in your long-term memory.

“The encoding process involves creating meaningful connections between brain cells and requires ample working memory. So if you’re preoccupied with introducing yourself to someone new or deciding what you’ll say next, your brain won’t encode information like the new name you hear — and you’ll promptly forget it.”

“Sometimes it’s easy to remember information, Dr. Sha said. If you feel a strong emotion like fear or trauma in the moment you learn something, for instance, you’re more likely to recall it later. This explains why many people remember exactly where they were on Sept. 11, she said.

“Repeating information, especially in new ways, can assist with memory storage, said Ronald Davis, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Florida. When we hear, see, recite aloud or write down a word, we get several chances to encode that word using different pathways in the brain.

“Prioritize sleep and exercise. As with many things in life, it’s more challenging to encode new information when you’re sleep deprived, Dr. Gallo said, so it’s crucial that you get enough rest. Regular activity such as aerobic exercise, weight lifting, stretching or even short walks can also enhance memory, both in the short term and over time, experts said.”

Things disappear. Where do they go?

I would tell you but I don’t know

Entropy got ahold of me

obviously.

There’s papers here

There’s papers there

Could be a desk underneath somewhere

Entropy got ahold of me

I put a string around my thumb

then I wonder what the fuck is this?

Where did it come from?

Entropy got ahold of me.

* * *

King Norman’s

Once upon a time there was a wonderful toy store out on Clement Street called “Norman’s Kingdom of Toys.” The proprietor, Norman Rosenberg, was born in Chicago in 1918. He had just gotten a law degree from DePaul University when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He enlisted in the Navy and became an officer on a troopship. On leave in San Francisco he met Doris Brodofsky, whom he married when the war ended. Her parents owned a toy store. They staked the newlyweds to the Clement St. location. 

“He was best known,” according to his obit by Carl Nolte in the Chronicle, “for his starring role in ‘The King Norman Show,’ a Saturday morning offering for children that ran on KGO-TV from 1954 to 1961… Mr. Rosenberg was a born showman. He wore regal robes and a crown and performed before a live audience of children, bestowing kindly advice and gifts from his store.” He and Doris built “a 21-store chain with branches all around the Bay Area and in Oregon and Washington.” 

In 1970 Toys ‘R Us opened off Hwy 280 in Pacifica with plenty of parking. King Norman’s on Clement St. was doomed. I took to watching television. 

Maude’s message to America tonight

Be kind to folks who’ve had strokes

The can still sing, they got a whole lot to bring

you if you’ll just laugh at their jokes.

Charlie’s message to America tonight

The Democrats are hypocrites through and through

And we can all laugh at the White House staff

As if we had some power, too.

King Norman Lear. King Norman Lear

In bed at night in Brentwood

what voices do you hear?

Mary’s message to America tonight

something is out of control!

Pat’s on the run, Heather thinks she’s a nun

Loretta better forget about her goal

King Norman Lear. King Norman Lear

Of all your darling daughters

which one holds you most dear?

Like Norman Rosenberg, Norman Lear enlisted right away when the US entered WW2. (Many Jewish men wanted to kill Hitler personally.) As a radioman in the Army Air Force, he flew 52 missions, mostly over Italy. He settled in Los Angeles, worked as a door-to-door salesman, and wrote comedy sketches. His break came in 1949 when Danny Thomas bought one for his new TV shows. 

* * *

NBA Comes Out of the Closet

The National Basketball Association has revealed itself to be a subsidiary of the gambling industry. The coming out party was held in Las Vegas where the so-called “In-Season Tournament” culminated in a win for the Lakers. Hype for the tournament included repeated showings of an expensively produced 90-second ad called “The Heist,” narrated by a Sopranos character (Christopher Moltisanti played by Michael Imperioli). “The Heist” doesn’t have a plot, but it conveys the impression that some young Black men are robbing a casino. 

Watching pro basketball on a screen, you are relentlessly invited to bet, not just on who wins but on every aspect of the game that can be quantified… Kevin Hart is reportedly a very funny man in person, but his screaming on TV is obnoxious.

* * *

For a Minute it Seemed Glorious

This is a book proposal. Working title, “Medical Marijuana: The Movement That Made Cannabis Safe for Capital.”

While a legal cannabis industry is being established in the United States – with ganjapreneurs, large and small, scrambling for market share – the political/scientific movement that made it possible is being forgotten. For a minute it seemed glorious. 

The history of the civil rights movement has been recounted accurately and respectfully in many books and other media. Histories of the Vietnam-era peace movement, women’s liberation, the gay rights movement, and other political struggles that altered our society have been published. But the story of the medical marijuana movement is untold (and the primary sources are leaving the scene). 

Was the MMJ movement of lesser importance? Over the years millions of US Americans have been jailed for violating federal, state, and county bans on Cannabis. Countless children on the autism-epilepsy spectrum – and their parents – have been denied the use of a medicine that can be uniquely effective. How many boozers would have been spared addiction and damage to their bodies if marijuana had been available as a way to overcome social inhibition?

Ken Burns will undoubtedly give us a “Marijuana” documentary in due course. I always learn things from a Ken Burns film, but I don’t always trust his political line, which is reflected and expressed by his choice of sources. Jazz? Wynton Marsalis. Country Music? Marty Stewart… To talk about the peace movement in their ten-part series on the War in Vietnam, Burns relied on a Santa Monica PR man and political activist named Bill Zimmerman. When he makes “Marijuana,” Zimmerman is apt to be a key source, on or off-camera. 

In the winter of 1995-96, the grassroots activists in California who had drafted an initiative to legalize the physician-authorized use of marijuana, were coming up short on their signature drive. Ethan Nadelmann, a political operative funded by George Soros, flew out from New York in January ‘96 to make them an offer: Soros and three other enlightened billionaires (Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, John Sperling of Phoenix University, and Laurence Rockefeller, of the ruling class) would guarantee a spot on the ballot by paying a professional signature gatherer… 

But Dennis Peron, the founder of the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, had to be replaced as campaign manager. All but a few of the leading activists were willing to ditch Dennis. To take his place, Nadelmann appointed Bill Zimmerman. 

In the spring of ‘96 I got an assignment from a New Yorker editor, Hendrik Hertzberg, to cover the campaign. (I was managing editor of Synapse, the internal weekly at the University of California San Francisco, which came out monthly during the summer, leaving me time for a freelance gig.)

Zimmerman had created a front group called Californians for Medical Rights (CMR) and hired a competent outfit called Progressive Campaigns to get the requisite signatures. In late April the measure made the ballot as “Proposition 215.” Both Zimmerman and Peron submitted ballot arguments in support of Prop 215. The Republican Secretary of State, Bill Jones, selected Zimmerman’s for inclusion in the Voters Handbook. 

* * *

The State Invades the City

Legalizing marijuana for medical use had been well ahead in the polls when Zimmerman took over the campaign. A statewide survey in June ‘96 by David Binder Associates put the margin of support at 60-40. Most of the people polled said they had made up their minds based on personal experience — their own or a loved one’s — and/or media coverage of the San Francisco club. 

The opposition was led by an over-confident Attorney General, Dan Lungren, and other Republican politicians and law enforcement officials who assumed the populace would buy the war-on-drugs propaganda forever. 

On Sunday morning August 4, some 100 agents from the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, supervised by John Gordnier, the Senior Assistant Attorney General who had obtained the court order, raided 1444 Market Street. 

Simultaneously, five smaller BNE squads raided the homes of Buyers Club staff members in and around the city. The raiders wore black uniforms with BNE shoulder patches. They seized 150 pounds of marijuana, $60,000 in cash, 400 growing plants, plus thousands of letters of diagnosis that citizens had brought from their doctors and left on file at the club. 

“It was strange not seeing any San Francisco police,” remarked Basile Gabriel, one of the employees detained for questioning that morning. “It felt like the state had invaded the city.” Mayor Willie Brown said the high-profile bust had been carried out unbeknownst to him, and he accused Lungren of “Gestapo tactics.” (The club’s front door had been battered in and the raiders hung black drapes over the windows to conceal what they were doing from civilian observers on Market Street.) 

The BNE had conducted a three-month investigation, which involved all kinds of techno-surveillance (including a helicopter!) and agents going to elaborate lengths to gain membership. They forged letters of diagnosis on fabricated doctors’ letterheads and even set up phone lines so that a club registration worker calling to confirm a patient’s letter would reach an agent at BNE headquarters pretending to be a doctor’s receptionist. The imaginary doctor was named “Nokamura”– a crude reference to Tod Mikuriya, MD, the Berkeley-based psychiatrist who was a leading proponent of medical marijuana use.

(…to be continued)